Speaking after last Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella breaks down the difficulties the team battled in terms of car setup and strategy, leading to radio outbursts from Norris.
McLaren’s Belgian Grand Prix was one of difficulty and frustration despite an eventual points finish from Lando Norris, taking home 6 points for the Woking based team. A difficult start with Oscar Piastri retiring due to damage from a turn 1 incident and with Norris starting from P17, saw the team battle the changeable conditions to score a hard earned points finish.
“It was starting to be a significant issue.”
Team Principal Andrea Stella admits the team’s car setup was a limiting factor during the Grand Prix. McLaren elected to focus on a wet weather setup, benefitting the team on Friday and Saturday, but the drier conditions during the Grand Prix saw the team struggle to match those around them with lower downforce setups.
“We were expecting the vulnerability,” Admits Stella when quizzed on the high downforce rear wing used by the team. “But indeed when we were in the mix with the other cars, [Lando Norris] was starting to spiral negatively quite rapidly.
“We have to very frankly admit that while this configuration gave us an advantage in the previous days, today it was starting to be a significant issue. Then we didn’t help ourselves, in a way, by trying to give Lando free air and fitting hard tyres.
“As a counterpart though, because we had enough downforce in the middle sector, that’s the reason we could extend the run on the soft so long and actually retain competitiveness even when the rubber was almost finished on the soft tyres. So it came to help us a bit overall, let’s say there’s some learning we take out of this weekend.”
“Psychologically it was very challenging.”
When pressed about Norris’ response to the cars poor performance at the beginning of the Grand Prix, Stella defended his driver, saying the situation he was in was very tough psychologically for the driver. He went on to praise Norris’ handling of the difficult situation.
“I think initially it was very tough,” he admitted. “Psychologically it was very challenging. We talked about this before the race. We talked before the race about ‘let’s not get dragged into being frustrated’, let’s only think about ‘how do we get out of this situation?’
“That’s why we triggered, initially, going out with an early stop on the hard tyres that didn’t work, but then once realised the rain was coming, we thought that’s another opportunity and I think we got that perfectly right. It’s tough, but ultimately Lando handled it exactly like we discussed.”
“I would like to praise the work done by our people…”
Delving deeper into the team’s tyre strategy, Stella breaks down the initial plan for Norris and elaborates on how changes were made on the fly in reaction to the changes on track. He admits the team initially overestimated the performance of the hard tyre compound, leading to a change in strategy early on during the Grand Prix.
“So the goal was to get Lando out of the cars around him, give him some free air and try to go long to then finish on the soft tyre. I have to admit our judgement on the grip of the hard tyres was not correct. The tyres did not have much grip at all and Lando found himself again in the mix of the other cars.
“Luckily the race gave us the opportunity to rectify the situation by going on soft very early. We kind of timed the going on soft with the rain. I would like to praise the work done by our people from the factory and from the track supporting the operations by observing the rain development, because they gave us information that allowed us to think we could go through the rain on dry tyres.
“Timing onto the soft tyres allowed Lando to recover a massive amount of time on anybody else who was out there on used tyres and they needed to be much more careful than Lando while driving under the rain.”
