Oscar Piastri collected leading kilometers in Japan and finished second in the end – but according to Andrea Stella, the race does not reflect the true balance of power
The Japanese Grand Prix was McLaren’s best race of the season so far. Oscar Piastri took the lead after the start, led the race until his pit stop and ultimately finished in second place behind Kimi Antonelli in the Mercedes.
Although he was able to leave both Ferrari drivers and George Russell in the second Mercedes behind, Andrea Stella emphasized that McLaren is still only the third force in Formula 1. “I think that Ferrari and Mercedes have a better performance,” said the team boss.
First of all, Stella made it clear that they still have no chance against the Mercedes works team in terms of pure pace. “I believe that once the Mercedes are in the lead, they simply cannot be caught,” he emphasizes.
“We saw that with Kimi when he was in the lead after the safety car,” says Stella. The Italian was able to pull away from Piastri immediately after the safety car phase and ultimately won the race by 13.7 seconds.
McLaren now understands the engine better, …
At the beginning of the race, Piastri was able to keep Russell in the other Mercedes behind him for a long time. But this was more to do with the fact that overtaking is traditionally difficult at Suzuka. On Sunday, the W17 was once again by far the fastest car on a clear run.
The exciting thing is that Stella sees McLaren not only behind the works team, but also still behind Ferrari. The team boss emphasizes that they were “on a par” with the Scuderia in Suzuka. But Stella believes that his former team still has the better car.
“I think we benefit from a drive that is more competitive overall. HPP has done a really good job in this respect in terms of the overall competitiveness of the powertrain,“ explains Stella.
”We can benefit from the better use of the power unit, which brought us closer in qualifying. I think this also allowed us to get closer to Ferrari and Mercedes in the race,” reports the team boss. But away from the engine, things are looking less good.
… but loses too much time in the corners
“If you look at the overlays of the race, it is noticeable that Ferrari still has a certain advantage in the corners. Their car can definitely generate more grip than ours,” Stella observed. McLaren therefore looked better in Japan than they actually were.
The Italian explains that the asphalt in Suzuka generally offers a lot of grip. “I think that is an advantage when the chassis is not performing particularly well,” says Stella, who also mentions another important factor. Because there was also no graining at the weekend.
This was different in Australia and China. “We seem to be a little more susceptible to this phenomenon with the tires than Ferrari and Mercedes,” observed Stella. That is why the team is satisfied with the result in Suzuka, but also has to be realistic.
“Our goal has not changed. We have to improve the performance of the chassis,” emphasizes Stella. Otherwise, the good result in Suzuka could just have been an outlier.