McLaren boss Andrea Stella has revealed Yuki Tsunoda’s crash in qualifying at Formula 1‘s Mexico City Grand Prix had an impact on the team’s pole position chances.
Lando Norris appeared on course to secure a crucial pole to bolster his dwindling title prospects when he managed the fastest time across the opening two sessions.
However, Norris was unable to retain his advantage as he ended up three-tenths behind Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, who took pole, while Max Verstappen also usurped him.
The Briton, though, insisted that third spot was McLaren’s rightful position in the pecking order as he conceded that he reached the “limit” earlier than his competitors.
But although Stella concurred with his driver’s assessment concerning Ferrari and Red Bull’s speed, he also contended that a switch in the track conditions had a role.
This was accentuated at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez as Tsunoda’s Q2 shunt delayed the Q3 start time, which Stella indicated unsettled the MCL38’s balance.
“Lando definitely pulled off some good laps already with the Medium in Q1,” Stella told media including Motorsport Week.
“Then the two attempts of Soft in Q1 and Q2 were competitive and relatively clean.
“We could see, though, that it wasn’t easy to put together laps easily, like we saw very well with Oscar [Piastri, who was eliminated in Q1].
“Some other competitors not necessarily were performing at the top of their potential and somehow after the red flag we experienced this with Lando.
“There was probably a bit of overdriving or the condition had changed a little bit and the lap time moves away from you very rapidly.
“I think that’s what we experienced with him.
“You have a couple of oversteers and the tyres basically start to lose grip very quickly, especially the rear tyres, you don’t have grip in the last sector.
“So it’s not a surprise that at this track lap time can go away quite rapidly especially when things don’t work.
“I would like to praise that Lando made a good job with the second set, because even with the second set the lap didn’t start perfectly, but he managed now to limit the issues.”
McLaren weakness exposed in Mexico
McLaren’s competitiveness in the last two rounds hasn’t matched the blistering pace that Norris was able to extract to dominate proceedings in Singapore last month.
However, Stella has derived encouragement from the Woking-based squad still being close to its main rivals at a circuit where its weakness in slow speed is exposed.
“We know that when we have braking into low speed like it happened in Austin the car is not an easy car to drive and it can become a little inconsistent,” he expanded.
“So it’s good that overall we did good laps together. We were actually not very far from Ferrari and I would say on par with Verstappen.”
Norris has a chance at the start
Meanwhile, Stella has highlighted that the protracted run down to Turn 1 will provide Norris with a good chance at the start to challenge Sainz and Verstappen ahead.
It was important at this track to be in the first couple of rows because it’s not necessarily a track in which pole position is the favourable
starting spot heading into corner 1 because of the long straight. But overall we are encouraged by the performance of the car.
READ MORE – Lando Norris: McLaren car being ‘too difficult to drive’ denied Mexico F1 pole shot
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