Team Principal Andrea Stella shared his insights on the difference in performance between the two McLaren drivers after Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri took the chequered flag in P3 and P5, respectively, at the 2026 Barcelona-Catalunya GP.
Setting the fourth-fastest time in qualifying, Norris started the 66-lap race on the medium tyres. While he didn’t have the pace to challenge Lewis Hamilton and the Mercedes drivers, he made the two-stop strategy of M-H-H work and inherited the podium upon Kimi Antonelli’s retirement on Lap 62.
Although his lap time was only good enough for seventh place, Piastri was only 0.089 seconds slower than Norris on Saturday. However, he struggled for pace relative to his teammate the next day in spite of being on a similar strategy. The Australian was on course to come home in seventh place before Antonelli and Charles Leclerc retired with only four laps to go.
Stella on why Piastri was slower than Norris at the 2026 Barcelona-Catalunya GP
Speaking in a print media session after Sunday’s race, Andrea Stella acknowledged that Piastri’s race pace had deviated from Norris’s in comparison to qualifying for the 2026 Barcelona-Catalunya GP when the McLaren drivers were within a tenth of each other.
Drawing attention to how Piastri had the pace to lay down the third-fastest time in qualifying—as far as theoretical ideal laps are concerned—the Italian surmised that the 25-year-old’s struggles in the race were down to his use of the tyres and the consequent degradation.
Furthermore, Stella explained how drivers ended up losing several seconds over the course of a stint at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya due to not only the Pirelli rubber wearing down but also suboptimal temperature management.
“Definitely there was a difference today in terms of race pace.
“After yesterday the two drivers were very close to one another. Actually in Q3, when we look at the perfect lap, Oscar [Piastri] has the third perfect lap.
“So, I would say that the difference in pace must have to do with the way in which the drivers use the tyres, the temperature that you generate in the tyres, and therefore the degradation that you have in a stint.
“You will have seen that you lose up to three seconds or more from the start to the end of a stint. And this very much has to do not only with the wear that you generate, but also with the temperature that you establish in the tyres.”
Potential solutions
Andrea Stella also highlighted how other teammate pairings had experienced a similar variance in terms of race pace at the 2026 Barcelona-Catalunya GP.
Arguing that Leclerc, who is known to be gentle on the tyres, had struggled for pace in comparison to Hamilton, the McLaren Team Principal inferred that there’s an underlying pattern that explains these disparities. Therefore, he reckoned that poring over the data would help them come up with solutions.
In the end, Stella reiterated that the difference in performance can be traced back to how the drivers and the cars had handled the tyres.
“We have seen some other competitors, like for instance Leclerc, who is normally quite good on tyres, struggling with pace compared to Hamilton.
“So, I think there is a pattern, and it’s a pattern that I would suggest we first investigate from a data point of view, pulling all the information, looking at what the learning is, and then fixing it.
“But I would say definitely it’s in the tyres and the way the car and the driver interacts with the tyres.”
