McLaren boss Andrea Stella has explained his own theory for why the team has not been as competitive over the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix weekend so far.
The Woking-based squad has yet to show the dominance it has typically shown throughout the season, culminating in a qualifying session which saw Oscar Piastri manage only third place, with Lando Norris down in seventh.
Norris’ poor grid position was partly down to driver mistakes in his final run, whereas Piastri’s lap was a surprising two tenths off the pole position time of George Russell.
Stella believes that the primary factor in its struggles this weekend has been down to the MCL39 struggling for sufficient grip on the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
“I think one of the reasons why this circuit has been a little bit of a struggle, as you say, which we have seen pretty much straight away in Free Practice 1, where it was difficult at the time to put together laps for the drivers and definitely we realised that the car wasn’t able to generate much grip,” he told media including Motorsport Week.
“And we think that the reason is that even if it’s low-speed corners, there’s actually a lot of braking and traction. There’s not much mid-corner phase in itself.
“You are either on the brakes or on the throttle. And in both conditions, we have to say that the car struggled a bit to start with, like I just said.
“And the team, they have done a very good job of actually improving the car compared to Free Practice 1. We have done several experiments with car setup, some of which have been successful.
“So they have become part of the baseline car into qualifying. And also the drivers needed to adapt their driving, which even in that case has been positive.
“And I think overall in qualifying, we were in condition to fight for pole position. Definitely very competitive in Q1 and Q2. So yes, a low-speed range in terms of cornering, but a lot of braking and traction. And in particular with kerbing and bumps, we’ve seen that the braking and traction wasn’t that easy for our car.”
Norris concurs with Stella’s theory as Piastri bemoans issues
Norris concurred with Stella as to why the McLaren has struggled across the weekend, saying the balance of the car has been a focal point in tandem with the need for extra traction.
“I think so. It’s just very low grip,” he addressed.
“I think, first of all, it’s one of the bigger things. And, therefore, the car balance just never comes together as much as what it does on other tracks.
“Probably just low grip and some of the kerb riding bumps, which just hurts us, it seems, more than some others.”
Norris also spoke of his belief that the circuit’s unique characteristic as one that is effectively dormant for the rest of the year as another contributing cause.
“It’s always the same here. It’s just not a track that gets used much. You see in the lap times, from what we do in FP1 to quali, it improves by four seconds or something.
“Just a lot of track improvement, and we kind of get there in the end. I think we just weren’t quick enough today, but clearly just a step behind where we needed to be.”
Piastri, like Norris, saw improvements in the car in qualifying, but its free practice running effectively caused its rivals to gain an advantage.
“I think we have struggled so far this weekend,” he said.
“In qualifying, we found our feet a bit more, and it became a little bit more normal. But apart from maybe one or two races in qualifying, it’s been very close a lot of the time.
“Today, you had the added complication of the Medium tyre versus the Soft.
And like George [Russell] was saying, it’s a track where they’ve been strong in the past. The conditions maybe suited them more.
“There’s a thousand reasons it could be. But yesterday, we were on the back foot.
“Even this morning for myself in particular – I was not particularly happy. In qualifying, I think it’s just the kind of normal battle.
“That’s a bit of the price you pay for not being on top of things from the start. You miss that extra half a tenth maybe, and that can be the difference. That’s more or less what it was today.
“Obviously the gap was bigger than that, but again, with some other factors in there, I think we were in the mix but paid the price for a slightly messy weekend.”
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