McLaren team boss Andrea Stella reflects on the challenges the team faced last year in Las Vegas. Both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri lacked the speed to compete in the leading group and were far removed from the rest. Stella reveals that McLaren has since made adjustments to perform stronger this year.
Last year, McLaren experienced one of its toughest races in Las Vegas. Norris qualified in sixth place and finished in the same position, while Piastri qualified eighth and finished seventh in the race. Both McLaren drivers crossed the finish line 45 seconds behind winner George Russell. Normally, the team competes for victories and podium finishes, but in Las Vegas, the speed was lacking. During the qualification, the team had issues with the behaviour of the tyres, and tyre graining played a significant role in the race.
“Vegas was really one of the toughest races last year,” Andrea Stella told Motorsport.com. “We also had some aerodynamic issues when we tried to lower the rear wing; we saw that we lost too much efficiency. In addition, we had some problems with the car’s setup, as we tried to compensate for this graining and address the understeer.”
Changes for Vegas
The analysis of the problems has provided McLaren with valuable insights. “The evaluation of Vegas last year gave us a lot of information to find ways to improve,” says Stella. “In terms of tyres, aerodynamic efficiency, and car setup, we now know which direction we need to steer compared to last year.” Whether these improvements are enough to compete for the victory this season, however, remains to be seen. “We will only see that in Vegas, but we have certainly taken action based on what we saw last year, as the performance was clearly not good enough then.”
