“Arms race” as a trump card in the war with Ferrari?

(Motorsport-Total.com) – A successful start to the season: With 69 points, McLaren is currently comfortably third in the World Championship standings. Ferrari (120) and especially Red Bull (141) look very far ahead, but the gap between Mercedes (34) and Aston Martin (33) is already large. Reason enough for team boss Andrea Stella to reach a temporary conclusion after the first four races of the year.

“If you look at the facts and figures, it would be a good result for our team if we could hold third place in the World Championship and establish McLaren as the third best car. We will definitely welcome this result,” explains Stella, also considering the fact that, as the best team of customers in the field, we are currently leaving several factory teams behind – notably the Silver Arrows, with the same engine.

In fact, the Italian wants to keep McLaren’s eyes on the front, and therefore in the current arrangement possible for Ferrari, with whom the Papaya team already had an interesting battle in Suzuka.

Stella sees a good arrangement – and praises Alonso

“There are tracks where it looks like we can fight with Ferrari,” Stella says, but he also classifies the best qualifiers compared to the reds, but the worst race in Japan: “I think on that one “We were able to hide. some of our current shortcomings with soft tires With the new soft tires you have a lot of grip,” says Stella, “so you can compensate for some weaknesses.”

In the hard tire race, a different picture emerged: “You lose a good tenth per lap, so after ten laps the tire becomes second slow. Then the weakness of the car becomes more apparent and that’s where we have mine. In my opinion, we suffered more in the race compared to qualifying.”

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In good condition: McLaren’s Andrea Stella with fans in Japan Grow

However, Stella is satisfied because for him the result of the Suzuka race gave a good impression: “If you look at the result, it depends on the competitiveness of the car. It’s a shame that we lost a place with Oscar (Piastri). In the end because of the brakeman. Otherwise we would have finished ahead of both Mercedes and, as I said, that is a great title.”

Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin, who finished fifth in Suzuka, carefully excludes Stella from this calculation and pays great respect to the Spaniard: “As always, he did a very good job and is a little special in that regard. I think ” It changes the standards of the car performance a little but we are happy to be a team with three points again, which means that we can strengthen our third place in the World Championship.

It’s all about the race for progress

Alone: ​​In China, Stella does not expect miracles from her team due to the characteristics of the road. The Italian is looking more at Miami – which also has the following history: “After Miami, where we bring a few new developments, we will have better information about how we can target this year,” reveals Stella.

The team boss has no illusions: “I don’t want to believe that Ferrari will not make any improvements. Of course they will,” explains Stella, referring to the Scuderia’s cautious attitude at the moment to this topic: “There will be an arms race and I think the amount of improvements will not be enough, because they will have others too.”

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At Suzuka, McLaren was just ahead of Ferrari in qualifying Grow

However, what gives Stella confidence: “Last year we were able to beat our rivals in the development race; we got more lap times than our competitors. So that remains our goal. As long as we see that what we bring to the track works” We are satisfied because we are within our solid development target.”

The McLaren team boss says: “We are developing the car as quickly as possible. Of course you can say that the resources are directed more towards the future and 2025 and 2026 – but the team is in a good position to do it. So I think we have a good balance and we will see that at the end of the season .” If the third place should be found – at least.