Constructors’ lead just the beginning for in-form McLaren
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella wants his team to focus on becoming Formula 1’s dominant team rather than celebrating overtaking Red Bull at the top of the constructors’ championship table.
Oscar Piastri’s victory in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix helped McLaren outscore Red Bull by 28 points, taking it to a 20-point lead at the top of the standings.
It’s the first time in more than a decade that McLaren has led championship, a streak dating back to the 2014 Australian Grand Prix, when Kevin Magnussen and Jenson Button opened the season with second and third in Melbourne.
The result also closes Red Bull’s 55-race run at the top of the table, having taken control of the standings at the 2022 Spanish Grand Prix.
The reigning constructors’ champions wouldn’t have been able to hang on to the lead, even if Sergio Perez had finished third rather than in the barriers after his penultimate-lap crash with Carlos Sainz.
The change in position signals the end of McLaren’s long run in the F1 wilderness and a remarkable turnaround in just the last 18 months, with the team having started 2023 at the back of the grid before bringing a series of fortune-changing upgrades to the car that would lead to this year’s title challenge.
“As a milestone it’s definitely huge because we have to not forget at the start of 2023 we were last when we started the season, and now we lead the classification,” Stella said.
“That’s a huge milestone that has been possible thanks to the great work, the hard work and the quality of the work of the entire team, the support from our shareholders the support from our partners, the fans.
“You achieve this because you achieve it together.”
But Stella isn’t satisfied to have McLaren rest on its laurels, imploring his team to target domination of the sport rather than simple success.
“My way of going racing and for the way I would like the team to go racing, this second is already over,” he said. “We don’t look at the classification; we just focus on executing at every single event, delivering the upgrades that we still plan to take to some of the future races, because the car as a matter of fact is still not fast enough to create some boring races, which is not in the interests of Formula 1 but is in the definitely the way in which we want to go racing.”
Stella also denied the accuracy of the growing paddock consensus that McLaren has the quickest car in the sport, insisting that the frontrunning pack was too finely balanced to pick a standout leader.
“When it comes to McLaren I often hear, ‘McLaren best car, McLaren best car’. I think this is not in the numbers. I think in the numbers McLaren is the best car in some kind of circuits, like Barcelona, Hungary and Zandvoort for good technical reasons, but here I don’t think McLaren enjoyed any advantage over Ferrari and I think not even over Red Bull.
“We have work to do in terms of making the car faster, and we need to remain humble and we need to keep the feet on the ground, because we see that in fairness there’s not much to pick at all between the four top teams.
“It’s just very, very balanced and here I think the execution by the drivers and the execution by the team is just what makes the difference.”