McLaren Formula 1 boss Andrea Stella believes that Lando Norris qualified ahead of both Ferrari drivers in Japan as one-lap conditions “mitigate” the team’s deficit.
The Woking-based squad had been tipped to thrive at Suzuka due to the high-speed nature of the circuit which suited the strengths of its evolved MCL38 challenger.
But while Norris was able to secure third on the grid behind the two Red Bulls, McLaren lost out to Ferrari in the race despite adopting aggressive strategic choices.
However, Stella stressed that McLaren didn’t commit a mistake in chasing the podium and that its finish behind Ferrari reflected the respective pace of the two cars.
The Italian contends that McLaren’s weakness in slow-speed corners wasn’t as prevalent last weekend but enough to become a weakness once degradation kicked in.
Asked whether Ferrari had underperformed or McLaren had overperformed in qualifying in Japan, Stella answered: “I think it’s a little bit of both.
“I think on a new Soft tyre, we could mitigate some of the deficits that we have at the moment, like low speed, when you have new rubber, a new Soft rubber with a lot of grip, the corner becomes quite a bit shorter, you have the grip to compensate some of the weaknesses, and we could defend from this point of view.
“We didn’t lose much time at the hairpin, or in some other low-speed corners.
“But today, when you are on harder compounds, then, like I say, every lap the tyre loses one-tenth. So, 10 laps in, your tyre is one second slower.
“Then, I think this exposes car weaknesses a little bit more. So, I think that’s why in the race we suffered a little bit more than in qualifying.”
Stella has admitted that McLaren will have to strive to outdevelop Ferrari as it did to its rivals last term to stand a chance of bridging the margin to the Italian marque.
Asked about McLaren’s upcoming upgrades in Miami enabling McLaren to reel Ferrari in, Stella underlined that remaining on an upward trend is the most vital thing.
“With sort of today’s situation, they may be [enough to challenge Ferrari], but I don’t even want to think that Ferrari won’t bring upgrades. They will certainly.
“So, it becomes a race of upgrades and, you know, I think it will be…one step of upgrades won’t be enough because they will also upgrade.
“But last year, we were able to outdevelop our competitors. Like in a season, we brought more lap time than competitors. So, for us, this remains the objective.
“And as long as we see that what we plan to bring trackside actually materialise, then we are happy because we know that we are in our trajectory, which we think is a strong trajectory.”
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