McLaren is already aiming for a reaction after a weekend below expectations at the Italian Grand Prix of Formula 1. Andrea Stella believes that three specific tracks can favor the car and put the team back in the fight for victories.
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At Monza, McLaren could not keep up with the pace of Mercedes, which dominated the race with Kimi Antonelli and George Russell. Lando Norris finished fourth, after overtaking Oscar Piastri on the last lap, in a weekend very different from the previous two, when the team had won with Norris.
Stella, however, does not consider that McLaren’s chances are over and expects a more competitive sequence in the next races: “A good, sensible, and realistic end of the year would be one in which, in the last nine or ten races, we will see sessions in which we can consistently fight for wins and achieve some of them,” he said.
The McLaren boss cited Malaysia, Austin, and Brazil as circuits that can favor the car’s performance. According to Stella, the team has observed that long corners can better exploit the model’s potential, while tracks that require very precise trajectories and have short corners may be less suitable.
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Before that, McLaren will bring new updates to Baku, although Stella expects an evolution in Madrid next weekend, since the lower importance of aerodynamic drag and the greater number of corners can help his team’s car.
Stella also recalled that McLaren was in a position to win in Zandvoort and Hungary: “We have to be very realistic, not let ourselves be conditioned by the championship standings. We just need to focus on one race at a time,” concluded the McLaren boss.
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