McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has revealed that he is not too worried that his side has failed to capitalize on some of the opportunities they had to win races. He made it clear that after Lando Norris’ failure to win at Silverstone due to McLaren’s strategic errors, he did not hold any “uncomfortable meetings” with his team members.
When asked by Martin Brundle about the same, Stella replied, “That’s not how you run an F1 team. An F1 team is not run by emotions. Otherwise, it’d collapse and implode pretty rapidly“. Instead, Stella believes that missed opportunities provide his inexperienced team another chance to learn and grow.
“A way to understand where are our gaps to be world champions, let’s say. And that’s where we focus,” Stella added. “The focus is on the opportunity, on the growth, on how we can improve“. Since McLaren are currently inexperienced when it comes to winning, Stella does not believe in an authoritative approach.
Martin Brundle asked Andrea Stella if there were uncomfortable meetings after the British GP:
“That’s not how you run a F1 team. F1 team is not run by emotions. Otherwise, it’d collapse and implode pretty rapidly, because this F1 is a roller coaster.” pic.twitter.com/AiWTje2WOA
— McLaren News | (@McLarenF1_News) July 19, 2024
Instead, he believes in being “constructive” and working diligently on their weaknesses as a collective rather than pinpointing others’ mistakes. Stella’s most recent remarks come after experts have often criticized McLaren for not having a winner’s mentality.
Expert exposes Norris and McLaren’s ‘loser mentality’
The British GP seems to be the perfect case in point when McLaren had a golden opportunity to win but failed to do so because of multiple strategic errors. Firstly, McLaren did not double stack their drivers when the track was drying rapidly.
With them calling Norris first and Oscar Piastri a lap later, the Australian lost out massively. Coming in a lap later was enough for Piastri to lose more than 20 seconds of lap time, which is almost a pit stop. Although McLaren were still in a position to win with Norris even after this mistake, they blew that opportunity as well with more mistakes.
One of them involved a bewildering radio call, as per an expert. While speaking on an episode of the ESPN Unlapped podcast, Nate Saunders explained how Norris’ radio call with his engineer highlights the British driver and McLaren’s ‘loser mentality‘.
“The thing that was really remarkable I thought was that we heard Norris’ radio, where they said, ‘You want to cover Lewis or you want to cover Max,” said Saunders. The ESPN expert then added Norris’ indecisive reply by adding, “Let’s cover Lewis’. Yeah let’s cover Lewis and then he pauses and says, ‘Or let’s cover Max. I am happy with either way“.
Saunders believes that this radio exchange between Norris and his engineer is enough to convince him that McLaren are still not in a position to take bold calls that can help them win races. The way the 2024 season has panned out so far, that does seem to be the case indeed.
Norris and McLaren have come agonizingly close to winning races on multiple occasions but failed. After Norris’ maiden win in Miami, he lost out by just 0.725 seconds in Imola to Verstappen. A similar script followed in Montreal when Norris lost out by less than four seconds to the Dutchman despite taking the lead at one point.
Similarly, in Spain also, Norris failed to win despite starting on pole. Meanwhile, when it came to Austria, Norris ended up crashing into Verstappen. This resulted in both drivers failing to win the Grand Prix.
