McLaren team boss Andrea Stella admits that Max Verstappen’s “below expectation” pace in the early stages of the United States Grand Prix gave it hope of victory.
Starting second, Lando Norris seized the lead away from the line and led the way until Verstappen, who lined up sixth, assumed first place into Turn 12 on Lap 27 out of 53.
McLaren responded by shortening Norris’ second stint, but the Briton struggled with tyre degradation in the closing laps and was overhauled by a charging Lewis Hamilton.
Stella asserts that McLaren’s strategy was centred around gunning for the victory, which evaded Norris by 10s as he was promoted up to second once Hamilton was disqualified.
“So on Lando’s side, we thought that the only first of all, we wanted to go for the victory,” he said. “So the only way to do that was try to go as fast as possible. Let’s see if the tyres are consistent or not.
“There’s no point in just taking care of tyres and then, you know, being just slow from a lap time point of view to achieve a certain strategy.
“And in the second stint, in the first stint, we worked very well. In the second stint, this meant that at some stage once Verstappen was close to us and then we were under attack. We couldn’t defend. And then we lost a little bit the tyres.
“So we pitted onto the second set of Hard. We tried to go as fast as possible because we knew that Hamilton would have been a problem at the end and even in this case, Hamilton had the better pace but also better consistency on the tyres.
“So from the point of view of pure lap time and from the point of view of degradation, we still have some work to do. But at the same time, we are very encouraged that we were in condition to think about going for the victory just by going as fast as possible.”
Stella concedes that McLaren’s dreams of achieving the side’s first win since 2021 were heightened by the slow initial progress Verstappen made through the top order.
Whilst Verstappen cantered to a dominant victory from the front in Saturday’s Sprint event, the Dutchman was hampered by race-long brake issues during Sunday’s encounter.
But Stella believes that Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez only managing to climb from ninth to fifth demonstrates that the Austrian camp didn’t possess too much pace in hand.
“In the first stint I thought Verstappen’s pace was below my expectations, I thought he would be making ground more rapidly,” Stella revealed. “That’s actually what gave us a little bit of, you know, fluctuating situation that ‘oh, maybe today we can do it because he doesn’t seem to be too quick’.
“Then once we went on to the Hard tyres and he was underneath him, it wasn’t like he was quick because of the car, I think quicker than he was in the first stint and he was potentially quicker because of the tyres.
“I think probably the Medium tyres were the better tyres today than the Hard, because degradation was high, but the tyres could do a long enough stint to do a good two-stop race on two Medium tyres.
“I’m not sure about how much lap time he needed to give up because of managing the problem with the brakes, this one I absolutely have no idea. I think we could see throughout the weekend that Hamilton was very quick and I’m not sure.
“It all depends on how much Verstappen was holding because of the brakes. But if we look at that it’s not like Perez was flying at the same time. So potentially at this event let’s say Mercedes was as quick as Red Bull.”
Asked if the result would have been different if Norris had a second set of new Medium tyres, Stella retorted: “I don’t think the result would have been different because Hamilton and Verstappen were too quick for us. But possibly we could have stayed in the game a little longer.”
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