McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella has set out the factors that he believes helped the squad to “stay in the race” in Japan, with the Italian admitting that there is one particular area where the team “have to improve”.
After two challenging weekends in Australia and China – the latter being particularly difficult, with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri both unable to start the race – the papaya outfit enjoyed a better outing in Suzuka.
Piastri spent the early stages of the race in the lead and, while he lost out somewhat owing to the timing of the Safety Car, the Australian still came home in second place behind Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli to seal McLaren’s first podium of the season.
Reflecting on why the team had a stronger performance this time out, Stella explained after the Japanese Grand Prix: “I think, first of all, without the variability introduced by the start of the grid, we would have seen a slightly more predictable race.
“I think if the Mercedes are on the lead, they just disappear. We have seen with the lead of Kimi after the Safety Car.
“In general, I think what has happened here compared to other races, well, first of all, McLaren wasn’t in the race.
“We can take advantage of the better exploitation of the power unit, which allowed us to be closer in Qualifying, and I think allowed us to be closer to Ferrari and Mercedes in the race as well. I think here with Ferrari we were on par.
“When we look at the overlays in the race, you can see that Ferrari still retains some advantage in the corners. Definitely their car is able to generate more grip than our car. I think we benefit from a power unit that overall is more competitive.
“HPP [Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains], from this point of view, have done a really good job in terms of the overall competitiveness of the power unit.
“One more factor is that here in Suzuka there was no graining. In the previous races, like Australia and the Sprint in China, I think we have seen that when there is a front graining, we seem to be slightly more susceptible to this phenomenon on the tyres than Ferrari and Mercedes.
“So, there is a combination of factors that allowed us to stay in the race today.”
Stella went on to suggest that certain aspects of Suzuka helped with what he deems as one of the team’s weaknesses, that being the chassis.
“Here with this tarmac, the grip from the tarmac is very high,” he continued. “I think it helps if you don’t have great performance from the chassis.
“Like I said before, I think that Mercedes and Ferrari have a better performance. Overall, good news, but it doesn’t change our objective. We have to improve the performance of our chassis.”
