McLaren boss Andrea Stella reflected on a mixed 2026 F1 United States GP as Lando Norris finished P5 and Oscar Piastri in 7th.
It was a strange weekend for the team. While the car had flashes of very strong pace in practice and qualifying with the World Champion, the MCL40 was massively inconsistent and extremely difficult to drive.
In the end, Piastri started 7th ahead of Norris as the Brit lost his last Q3 time because of track limits. It had put him P6.
On Sunday, McLaren went bold as they tried a one-stop strategy with both cars, starting on mediums and switching to hards.
However, a 40-lap stint for the 2026 Hungarian and Dutch GP winner on the white walled tyre was a bit too far as the deg kicked in hard inside the final 10 laps. Running in P2 a fair way behind Kimi Antonelli, he was overtaken by Leclerc, Verstappen and Hamilton to fall to P5. Nonetheless, he just held off Isack Hadjar.
Andrea Stella on McLaren’s 2026 F1 United States GP
Speaking in this print media session after the race, the Italian and former Ferrari engineer looked back on the pace and how encouraging it was for McLaren.
Once he pitted at the end of Lap 16, the 13-time race winner was a full 20 seconds behind Max Verstappen as the Dutchman ran in P2 ahead of the Ferraris. By the time the four-time World Champion boxed again on Lap 31, the gap was under 15s.
While the Red Bull driver was on the softs versus the hards for Norris, it was strong pace displayed by car #1. He had also made significant inroads of 8 seconds on Lewis Hamilton (mediums) before Ferrari pitted on Lap 38.
As Norris had qualified down in 8th and lost a lot of time in the first stint, a one-stop was the call to try and get in the podium fight.
“I think today in the race we saw that what we said yesterday could have been the potential of the car was actually realised.
“Like yesterday we thought that we had a faster car than we actually were able to realise on track. Lando said that the car could have been good for P2. I think that’s a little bit of an exaggeration because even if the potential was there, I explained yesterday that this year somehow it’s very difficult to use the full potential.
“It gets a little bit easier in the race because you don’t push as much as you do in qualifying. You necessarily leave a little bit of margin and the car was I think today as competitive as the Ferraris and Red Bull, while Antonelli seems to be a step ahead of everyone else.”
Going for the hard tyres and trying a one-stop with Lando Norris
“Because of the starting position from a strategy point of view, we didn’t have many options at the start so we tried to stay with the others. We saw that the performance was good and we tried to deploy the hard tyres which in practice seemed to be competitive and we knew that the others were going for the softer side of the tyre allocation.
“Once we saw the first stint and the fact that they were struggling a bit, we got some encouragement that using the hard tyres could have been a good way of catching up. So we were actually catching up compared to the two Ferraris and Verstappen in the second stint and at some stage we just decided to go for the one-stop because if we go for a two we are always going to stay behind.
“For the one-stop, this gives you the possibility to take advantage of a Safety Car which didn’t come. We are still waiting a compensation for what happened in Madrid; it will come.
“We also attempted to see what’s left in the hard tyres but honestly we knew that it was very, very unlikely that we could have kept Verstappen and in particular Leclerc behind. With Hamilton we thought it was more dependent on the final tail of the hard tyres. Nobody would have known but worthwhile giving it a go.”
Stella satisfied with the strategy call and upgrades at 2026 F1 United States GP; qualifying needs work
“So we are happy with the strategy execution, we are happy with the fact that we kind of understood which tyres needed to be used today, happy with the fact that the car seems to have improved thanks to the upgrades.
“But we need to improve our qualifying performance and we also need to keep improving the car if we want to consistently compete for podiums but above all for victories.”
The swap between Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris
Once the Australian lost overtake mode to George Russell early on, McLaren swapped the cars on Lap 8 for P7. As had been the case when he got clean laps in during Friday and Saturday, Norris was multiple tenths a lap quicker than Piastri in race trim once he had fresh air.
The swapped work as last year’s World Champion was 22s ahead at the flag. It was also critical in making sure Norris finished ahead of the second Red Bull. McLaren are tied on points with them post-Austin as they battle for P3 in the Constructors’ Championship. Piastri holding off Russell for P7 could be huge also.
Andrea Stella revealed McLaren had already made plans before the 2026 F1 United States GP as Norris was faster than Piastri throughout the weekend. Once again, the Brit’s ability to manage the car and tyre sliding was a key factor in his significant pace advantage on a relatively low-grip surface.
“We had seen during the weekend that Lando was a little bit faster than Oscar.
“This is a track in which Lando excels and is one of the tracks in which Oscar instead struggles a little bit more. So this year I think in particular for Oscar is tricky because Oscar’s superpower is to build, once he creates references he can really effectively build lap after lap.”
COTA allows Norris to bring out his best version
“But here, every lap is different. So these are the conditions that challenge Oscar. And actually are the conditions where Lando uses his own superpower which is being very adaptive to the conditions especially as the car slides.
“So given this context we discussed before the race that if Lando was behind Oscar and Oscar could not keep up with the cars ahead then we could have given Lando a chance or an opportunity to see if we could attack the cars ahead, and that’s what we did.”
The importance of teamwork
Andrea Stella also emphasised the importance of the team coming first once more after the 2026 F1 United States GP. He was livid following contact between Norris and Piastri in the Singapore Sprint.
“It’s a way of demonstrating that as a team and together with the drivers we care about the interest of the team which was always the conversation that we have had. And especially after Singapore, we reinforced how much it’s important that we all together help McLaren go back to the position that we want to have, which is Oscar and Lando first row in qualifying, [and] fighting for the win. And then we manage the internal competition.
“But up to then, all together we need to sustain the trajectory of McLaren back to the front.”
