F1 News
McLaren don't allow themselves to get carried away: 'Only a second'
Entering the 2025 campaign, many believe McLaren are the favourites as the grid is set to travel to Australia next weekend. Team principal Andrea Stella underlined that achieving one of the titles did not change their mindset.
After completing a positive pre-season test in Bahrain, now, there seems to be an unanimous agreement between analysts and also drivers like Max Verstappen that McLaren are heading into the season as a clear favourites, at least during the beginning of the year.
Thanks to securing the constructors' championship the previous season against Ferrari on the final day in Abu Dhabi, McLaren will now have the first garage in the pit lane. Team principal Andrea Stella said it's a pleasant feeling, but underlined to GPblog and others that such things will not make the Woking-based side comfortable at all.
"Being the first garage, I'm sure everyone in the team will have had, for a second this kind of thought as you allude to. Like, ‘wow we are the first garage’. I didn't think that this will be one of the implication or the positive consequences of winning a championship, and I'm sure everyone in the team would have enjoyed this kind of realisation," he began.
'Everyone starts from zero'
The Italian is confident that McLaren will march forward the same way to repeat their success in 2025. "But if I know my team well, I know that this will be the thought of a second, and the second after is, like, ‘ok good. Now it's all to be gained again’. Like, you start everyone from zero points, and it's where the being professional, the being focused on the present, that counts."
He concluded: "So let's say that this was true for a second, but this second has gone already. We got used to that, and now we are fully focused on the present and the future."
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