McLaren boss Andrea Stella has singled out Max Verstappen as a determining factor of why Red Bull has shown competitiveness in Formula 1‘s Singapore Grand Prix weekend.
Coming into the Singapore GP weekend, not many had high hopes from the Milton-Keynes-based squad or Verstappen.
The four-time World Champion has historically struggled for results on the streets of Singapore. Yet, during Qualifying today at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, the Dutchman secured his highest grid slot with the second-fastest lap in the top-10 shootout.
This season, the 28-year-old has often struggled to get to grips with the RB21, pushing him out of title contention right up to the halfway point.
However, since the summer break, Verstappen has seen a sharp resurgence with back-to-back wins at Monza and Baku.
Stella, who endured a difficult outing with Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris only able to muster third and fifth respectively, evaluated how Red Bull might have found the colloquial silver bullet with its package.
“I think it’s interesting for everyone to see what Red Bull were able to do in a circuit like this for a couple of reasons,” he told media including Motorsport Week after qualifying.
“One is that they were competitive in Monza, very competitive, and then they were competitive in Baku, and we thought, ‘let’s see whether this depends on using low level of drag, small rear wings, and it can be repeated at high level drag and big rear wings’.
“And the second reason being that here in Singapore they might have struggled a bit in the past.”
McLaren ‘accept the fight’ Red Bull will provide in Singapore GP
That said, while Red Bull’s pace may have been against the grain, in terms of out-and-out performance at Singapore, Stella was not surprised by how the team has fared given it has Verstappen in its ranks.
“Well, the evidence is that they might have resolved both of these high drag and Singapore, let me say, factors, but this is not a surprise,” he asserted.
Verstappen is 69 points adrift of Piastri with seven races still to go for the Dutchman to erase the deficit and bag his fifth consecutive title, and Stella is adamant that while his driver is in the best position to wrap up his maiden title, Verstappen cannot be discounted.
“It’s Red Bull, they are extremely capable, Max is a driver that is just, you know, Max Verstappen, I don’t think we need to make any further comments, so no surprise that they are in the game,” he concluded.
“It’s tight, and it’s interesting. You know, obviously we would like to make Formula 1 boring, but we have done it sometimes at some of the events, but normally Formula 1 is competitive, it’s tight, you have to accept the fight, and that’s what we are doing.”
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