McLaren Formula 1 boss Andrea Stella has clarified that there was no “single silver bullet” attributable to the team’s podium-scoring speed in the Chinese Grand Prix.
The Shanghai International Circuit’s combined long radius corners and slow-speed turns prompted Stella to label F1’s return to China as a “damage limitation” round.
However, the Woking-based squad surpassed those expectations to bag Sprint pole in inclement conditions prior to Lando Norris securing a podium in the grand prix.
Norris had expressed surprise that he managed to split the Red Bulls, having disclosed that he had a bet McLaren would finish 35 seconds behind the Ferrari drivers.
Stella has noted that McLaren’s competitiveness in the earlier truncated race in the weekend run in drier conditions meant its advantage over Ferrari came as a shock.
Asked whether the race result was expected, Stella told Autosport: “No. Because in fairness, in the Sprint we didn’t see that we had that race pace that would have allowed us to finish ahead of Ferrari. In line somehow with what we expected before coming here. So, it’s a bit of a surprise especially in terms of race pace, I would say.
“I think over a single lap we know that we are strong when we have a new Soft rubber. We can do a good job for a single lap.
“But then when we put laps one after the other we tend to lose some performance. But today I think somehow the track conditions and the cold conditions – the fact that there was no sunshine – helped keep the rear tires under control. And therefore we could use the strengths of the car like we saw in qualifying.”
Alongside cooler temperatures, Stella believes that the Shanghai track deviating from being a front-limited circuit with ground effect cars also inspired McLaren’s rise.
“I think it’s a circuit in which there wasn’t much front limitation,” he added. “Since we went to the wide tyres China doesn’t seem as difficult for the front tyres as it was in the past.
“And, at the same time I think the conditions helped retain grip on the rear because the rear axle especially today was not overheating.
“While if we look at the Sprint, I think there were we had a lot of a bit of overheating like Ferrari seemed to be more comfortable, Max [Verstappen] had a huge advantage.
“I think you have these situations when there’s degradation, but today it was more under control. So, I think we struggled a little bit more in front limited circuit and here it wasn’t.
“And the rear axle, I think was under control because of the cold conditions. So a little bit of a combination of factors, which helped in the performance of our car.”
Stella also divulged that McLaren was surprised when set-up tweaks aimed at bolstering its race prospects after the Sprint didn’t compromise its single-lap potential.
“I think also some tweaks we made to the setup after the sprint they did help the race pace because we changed the car with a view to improving the race pace rather than qualifying.
“So we were actually surprised to see that still in qualifying we were decent, but it looks like it did help with the race. So multiple factors not a single silver bullet.”
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