Andrea Stella Explains Lando Norris’ Qualifying Struggles
Andrea Stella Explains Lando Norris’ Qualifying Struggles
McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella has shed light on the challenges Lando Norris faced in qualifying, attributing his struggles to both tire behavior and car characteristics that did not suit his driving style.
Speaking after the session, Stella acknowledged that Norris has found it difficult to extract the maximum performance from the car this weekend, especially compared to the comfort he felt during the Australian Grand Prix.
“I think we can say that there’s a couple of things. One, mainly related to the behavior of the tires on this surface. And the other one, I think, is more related to the behavior of the car that makes exploiting the car at the limit a bit difficult,” Stella explained.
While both Norris and his teammate Oscar Piastri have had to adapt to these conditions, Stella noted that Norris has been more affected due to his particular driving style.
“It’s more of a penalty for Lando given his driving style and the way he wants to generate lap time,” he said.
Despite these difficulties, Stella highlighted that Norris’ best lap times in both the sprint qualifying and main qualifying sessions were highly competitive.
“His best lap times in both the sprint quali and Q2 in qualifying were actually very competitive. But somehow, when he tried to find the last one or two tenths that you normally would find when you put a couple of new sets, he hits these sorts of behaviors,” he explained.
According to Stella, Norris tends to perform better when he is at “99% of his potential”, but when attempting to extract that last bit of performance, “he trips over a little bit.”
When asked whether adjustments could be made to the car setup to make it less sensitive, Stella confirmed that some modifications were made between the sprint and qualifying sessions to improve driveability. However, he acknowledged that certain fundamental limitations remained.
“Some of the inherent limitations that I referred to before—one in relation to the tires and one in relation to the car—actually cannot be fully compensated by just working on car setup. There’s something slightly more fundamental from a car point of view that we could not change here,” Stella admitted.
Tire management has also been a key issue for McLaren, particularly when it comes to front graining, a problem that has carried over from last season. Stella admitted that the team anticipated some graining but underestimated its severity.
“We sort of anticipated that there could have been some front graining, but there was more than we anticipated. So I think in this respect, internally, we need to review our prediction,” he said.
Stella remains confident that Norris and Piastri have gained useful insights through the weekend that will help them adapt for the race.
“There’s a significant amount of influence that the driving style can have. And from this point of view, I’m confident that Lando and Oscar, working with their engineers, will have gained some information on what to modify to reduce front graining,” he concluded.
With Ferrari showing strong race pace, McLaren will need to continue fine-tuning their approach to maximize their performance and fight for top positions in Sunday’s race.
