Stella Insists McLaren Were 'As Competitive as the Ferraris and Red Bull' Despite Missing Austin Podium
Stella's verdict: the pace was there, the result wasn't
Andrea Stella has delivered a defiant assessment of McLaren's United States Grand Prix weekend, arguing that his cars were "as competitive as the Ferraris and Red Bull" on Sunday despite neither driver reaching the podium in Austin.
Lando Norris crossed the line fifth, with team mate Oscar Piastri seventh, after the pair had qualified only eighth and seventh respectively — a Saturday that left McLaren with too much ground to recover on a circuit where overtaking proved difficult.
Norris ran second before fading to fifth
The potential of the MCL40 briefly flickered into life in the Grand Prix, at least in Norris' hands. The Briton ran as high as second in the closing stages, only to be reeled in and passed by Max Verstappen's Red Bull and the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, dropping him to fifth by the flag.
Stella said that performance vindicated what the team had been saying about the car all weekend.
"I think in the race we saw that what we said could have been the potential of the car was actually realised," said the McLaren Team Principal. "Yesterday [in Qualifying], we thought that we had a faster car than we actually were able to realise on track. Lando said that the car could have been good for P2.
"I think that's a little bit of an exaggeration, because even if the potential was there, this year somehow is very difficult to use the full potential. It gets a little bit easier in the race, because you don't push as much as you do in Qualifying. You necessarily leave a little bit of margin, and the car was, I think, today as competitive as the Ferraris and Red Bull, while [Kimi] Antonelli seemed to be a step ahead of everyone else."
Stella's reference to Kimi Antonelli is telling: while McLaren scrapped with the front-runners, the Mercedes driver was, in the McLaren boss's view, operating on a different level entirely in Austin.
The one-stop gamble that never paid off
Norris climbed to second by switching to a one-stop strategy, while Leclerc, Verstappen and Hamilton all committed to two-stop races. That gave the chasing trio fresher rubber for the run to the flag, and they hunted down and passed the reigning World Champion in the final laps.
Piastri, meanwhile, brought his car home seventh, holding off Mercedes' George Russell in the process. Stella admitted the strategy carried an obvious risk that never materialised into reward.
"For the one-stop, this gives you the possibility to take advantage of a Safety Car, which didn't come," said Stella. "We are still waiting a compensation for what happened in Madrid! It will come, and we also attempted to see what's left in the hard tyres, but honestly, we knew that it was very, very unlikely that we could have kept Verstappen and, in particular, Leclerc behind.
"With Hamilton, we thought it was more dependent on the final tail of the hard tyres."
A drought McLaren must break quickly
Norris felt fifth was the best result available to him in the circumstances, but the wider picture is uncomfortable for a team that was winning races only months ago. Since his brace of victories in the summer, the Briton has not finished on the podium in the last four Grands Prix.
Stella's message, though, is that help is on the way, with upgrades set to arrive in the coming weeks to drag McLaren back into the fight at the very front of the field.