Team principal Andrea Stella is pleased that McLaren is competitive in both qualifying and racing, and sees it as a positive sign
McLaren dominated the third free practice session for the 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix. Oscar Piastri set the best time, with the first pursuer of the papaya speedsters 0.834 seconds behind (Charles Leclerc in a Ferrari). Even Ralf Schumacher at the Sky microphone was amazed: “Boy, are the McLarens fast!”
In qualifying a few hours later, when the sun had set over the Sachir desert and the asphalt had cooled, the picture was quite different. Piastri took pole position, but his lead over Mercedes driver George Russell was only 0.168 seconds. And Lando Norris was sixth after a driving mistake in the first sector.
Andrea Stella believes that the truth lies more in qualifying than in free practice, in which the heat was sweltering and grip extremely low: “The gaps in the sessions, which don’t tell us too much on their own, depend on various factors: fuel load, engine mode and so on,” says the McLaren team principal.
“What’s interesting here is that the more slippery the track is, the greater our advantage seems to be. Normally, that’s a good thing. From my experience, it means that the car has a high level of fundamental downforce. The less grip the asphalt offers, the more important this type of downforce becomes.”
“When it comes to cooler sessions, a little more grip comes from the asphalt, and the denser air also provides more downforce. In such situations, the gaps tend to narrow. This may be exactly the trend we are seeing here in Bahrain. In any case, I see this characteristic of our car as a strength,” explains Stella.
Because when grip is not only generated by the tires, aerodynamics become more important. And the McLaren engineers seem to have done a good job with the MCL39 in this regard. Nevertheless, Stella is not surprised that it was close in qualifying: “I just read the numbers and look at the facts. The gaps are what they are. And in this case, too, we were able to achieve a small lead of a few tenths over second place.”
But: ”A few tenths can also mean that small inaccuracies can cost you a place at the front. Today, Oscar was almost flawless in his laps, and that’s why he’s in P1. In Japan, we saw that you immediately lose pole if you let a little performance slip.”
Incidentally, it is interesting to note that McLaren not only seems to have the best “tire whisperer” in the field over the full race distance, but that the car also works for the fast single lap in qualifying. This is a balancing act that not all teams have managed in the past. Even the Red Bull in its best years was more of a race car than a qualifying car.
“It’s true that these two characteristics have traditionally not been combined in the same car,” says Stella. ”But I’m not sure if we’ve really been challenged at all when it comes to tire temperature control. And that applies not only to McLaren, but in general. Tire warm-up has not been a decisive performance factor so far.”
“I would be surprised if there were any problems with warming up the tires here in Bahrain with this type of asphalt and at these temperatures. I think that’s exactly why we see that it’s not an issue – because it’s simply not a relevant factor. It may be different at other tracks, but here it’s not an issue.”
“Hopefully in the race, we can see our car making the most of the other key factor – managing the tyres and not wearing them down excessively. In Japan, tire wear was not an issue, but here it looks like a track with high wear, at least based on the findings from training. And the lap times suggest that the wear could be even higher than last year.”
