Formula 1 showed a more balanced scenario at the Miami GP, with McLaren reducing the gap to Mercedes. Even so, Kimi Antonelli‘s dominant victory reinforces that the German team remains the benchmark.
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McLaren boss, Andrea Stella, assessed that not only his team, but also Red Bull Racing and Ferrari, managed to improve with updates brought to the weekend. This helped to shorten the gap to Mercedes, which has won all four races of the season so far.
“With the updates that several teams brought to Miami, we saw changes in the level of competitiveness. Clearly McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull are closing the gap. In a fast lap, execution is very important,” said Stella. “We saw McLaren stand out in the Sprint qualifying, but the same car was further back on the grid in qualifying, and that has a lot to do with execution, optimization and adaptation.”
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Despite the advances, Stella made a point of highlighting that Mercedes still has a clear advantage on the grid. According to him, the team did not extract all the potential on Saturday, which opened the door for rivals to appear more competitive in the Sprint.
“Mercedes still seems to have a few tenths of an advantage over everyone. This became more evident in the race and also yesterday,” he added. “In the first Sprint phase of the weekend, for some reason, they did not show their full potential, and it seemed that others evolved more than expected. In reality, it was probably just Mercedes that did not optimize their performance.”
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