McLaren F1 and Norris set their sights on emulating Vettel’s success and clinching both championship titles this season.
McLaren F1 struck hard this Sunday at Zandvoort with a resounding victory by Lando Norris. Andrea Stella, the team director, doesn’t believe this changes the team’s accounting situation. He reminds that the constructors’ championship was already a target before the Netherlands, and the situation in the drivers’ standings is delicate.
“The constructors’ championship, we were already playing for it before this event. As for the drivers’ championship, we definitely wanted to keep a cool head and focus on the fact that it was possible,” Stella explains.
“We even discussed and looked at what Vettel did in 2013 and thought we could do the same, why not? We need to stay focused, we need to think it’s possible.”
“I have to say that Zandvoort is very encouraging from a performance perspective. At the same time, it happens on a track, as we said Saturday, that seems to be very suited to our car, as was Hungary.”
“Even after Hungary, we said it wouldn’t be a double win at every race, and it’s not. It just seems very track-dependent at the moment. But this race definitely exceeded expectations, including in terms of qualifying performance, race performance.”
“And to some extent, even tire degradation was very good, to the point where Lando set the fastest lap of the race on the last lap.”
“More developments before the season’s end”
Stella acknowledges that the developments helped make McLaren the fastest team at Zandvoort, although he’s not certain they made the difference. He doesn’t think the MCL38 is the best car on all terrains.
“I’m not so sure in terms of relative competitiveness. If we go to tracks that compare to this kind of circuit, then we can be sure that we will perform well. Where high downforce is needed, with long corners.”
“If we go to tracks where there are very fast corners like at Silverstone, then we know that Red Bull is very strong on these kinds of tracks. And yet, I think if we return to Austria, they will be faster.”
“Because in Austria, they had a four-tenths advantage in qualifications. Thanks to the current developments, we will be more competitive even where Red Bull was potentially faster than us. But by how much? That’s not easy to know.”
“In a way, we missed the chance to see in Belgium who had the fastest car on dry soil because of the intermediate tire qualifications. But we think that the car in its current configuration may not be enough in terms of performance required to be the best car at every event.”
“That’s why we plan more developments before the end of the season.”
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