Team principal Andrea Stella reflected on McLaren’s impressive outing at the F1 Spanish GP, where Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris delivered a strong 1-2 finish.
Piastri extended his lead in the Drivers’ standings after a dominant lights-to- flag victory at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, finishing ahead of his McLaren teammate and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. While Norris had the upper hand in Monaco, in Spain the momentum swung in the Australian’s favour once again. Piastri showed great form in FP2 and FP3 and later qualified on pole, flanked by Norris and Max Verstappen. On Sunday, he drove a controlled race to secure his seventh career win, managing a hat-trick—pole, fastest lap and victory—in the process.
Stella unpacks McLaren’s race
While Piastri had a great launch, Norris lost ground to Verstappen at the start of the race. Stella acknowledged this early setback disrupted Norris’s first stint as he had to focus on chasing the Red Bull rather than challenging Piastri.
However, he praised the performance of both drivers, who went on to secure another 1-2 finish for the team.
“You do have to use your tyres more,” Stella said of Norris’s circumstances in the first stint at the Spanish GP.
“Because you are following, and when you are following, aerodynamics reduces, so you have to extract from the tyres what you lose from an aerodynamic point of view. Which could be easily like half a second, that you extract more from the tyres. So I think yes, more tyre consumption for Lando in the first stint.
“But overall, I have to say that the two drivers today were in a way quite surprisingly pretty much going in parallel throughout the entire race.”
Piastri’s performance in Spain marked a stark departure from his struggles at the same circuit last year, where he started 10th and crossed the line in P7, 31 seconds adrift of Norris.
Stella recognised Piastri’s progress, adding: “And I think Oscar has done a really impressive job, considering that last year this was one of the most difficult races for him. So he’s gone a really long way forward in 12 months.”
