McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella believes Red Bull is “extremely good” at creating false narratives regarding its Formula 1 competitiveness after Max Verstappen took pole position for the Miami Grand Prix.
Coming into the weekend, Red Bull senior advisor Helmut Marko was fearful that the Miami International Autodrome would expose the RB21’s limitations.
The overarching narrative was that McLaren would once again be the team to beat, until Verstappen put his Red Bull on pole, beating Lando Norris by 0.065s, with Oscar Piastri fourth.
Asked if he was surprised to see Verstappen on pole given Red Bull’s fears, Stella retorted that all is not what it seems from the Milton Keynes-based outfit.
“You know, Red Bull, they are very good at making fast cars, they are very exceptionally good, I would say, at driving fast cars, and they are extremely good also in creating the narrative to their advantage,” he told select media including Motorsport Week.
“They exploit every possible opportunity to stay in the competition, and some of these opportunities, sometimes, is to create the narrative, like, ‘oh, we are making miracles here, the others should win every single practice session and qualifying and race.’
“But this is the narrative created by some of our competitors, which we read occasionally, and then we change the page and we focus on ourselves.”
McLaren focussing within
Stella added that away from potential Red Bull distraction tactics, McLaren is purely focused on itself, and where it can improve.
“And when we focus on ourselves, we look at the numbers, we look at the facts, we look at what we should be improving, and there’s a lot that we should be improving,” he said.
“So, for me, when I look at the facts, I also look at what Lando and Oscar deliver, and deliver quite consistently.
“So, yeah, well done to Red Bull, even in terms of the way they manage their non-technical opportunities.”
A similar line of questioning was put to Norris in the post-qualifying press conference.
Given Verstappen has three pole positions in a Red Bull, which has only yielded a best qualifying result of eighth on the other side of the garage, Norris was queried as to whether Verstappen is getting more out of the RB21 than he and Piastri are out of the McLaren MCL39.
“Impossible to know, you know, what car he’s got compared to us,” Norris replied, before highlighting that in fact, McLaren has an advantage with two drivers on a level playing field.
“The advantage we have is two quick drivers and they don’t, or we have a car that’s capable of allowing drivers to drive it quicker,” he added.
“But yeah, impossible to know, impossible to actually know the difference between the two cars.”
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