McLaren’s Lando Norris started on pole for Saturday morning’s 19-lap sprint race, but after going off the road at the start he fell to seventh. He took sixth at the checkered flag due to Fernando Alonso’s retirement, finishing ahead of teammate Oscar Piastri but behind both Ferraris.
His race pace compared to the Scuderia looked in line with the Woking team’s moderate expectations for the weekend, but that picture changed completely on Sunday when Norris split the Red Bulls to finish second, while Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc failed to finish in the top. five.
Norris said there was “nothing to indicate” better-than-expected competitiveness from the team on Sunday, but team boss Stella suggested cooler conditions provided a possible explanation.
“In all honesty, in the sprint we didn’t see that we had a race pace that would have allowed us to finish ahead of Ferrari. It was sort of in line with what we expected before coming here.” , said Stella.
“So it’s a bit of a surprise, especially in terms of race pace. We know we’re strong when we have new soft tires, we can do a good job on one lap, but when we string the laps together, we tend to lose a bit of performance.
“But I think somehow the track conditions and the cold, the fact that there was no sun, helped keep the rear tires in check. And so we was able to use the car’s strengths, as we saw in qualifying.”
“The rear axle in particular wasn’t overheating. Whereas if we look at the sprint I think we had a bit of overheating and Ferrari seemed to be more comfortable.”
Oscar Piastri, McLaren MCL38
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Piastri finished eighth after suffering damage in the safety car collision between Daniel Ricciardo and Lance Stroll, with Ricciardo’s RB marking his diffuser which Stella said cost him up to four tenths per lap.
“It was a big loss,” Stella said. “Oscar had damage to the diffuser, he lost a significant amount of rear downforce, equivalent to four tenths of a second, something like that.
“When we heard the numbers, I wasn’t very optimistic that we could have filled positions like Oscar was able to.
“His result is less noticeable than Lando’s, but I think he did a good job trying to figure out how to drive the car when he lost so much rear downforce. The car was oversteering a lot.”
“He managed to make some adaptations and keep [Lewis] Hamilton is behind, so that’s also a good result.”
McLaren’s Lando Norris started on pole for Saturday morning’s 19-lap sprint race, but after going off the road at the start he fell to seventh. He took sixth at the checkered flag due to Fernando Alonso’s retirement, finishing ahead of teammate Oscar Piastri but behind both Ferraris.
His race pace compared to the Scuderia looked in line with the Woking team’s moderate expectations for the weekend, but that picture changed completely on Sunday when Norris split the Red Bulls to finish second, while Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc failed to finish in the top. five.
Norris said there was “nothing to indicate” better-than-expected competitiveness from the team on Sunday, but team boss Stella suggested cooler conditions provided a possible explanation.
“In all honesty, in the sprint we didn’t see that we had a race pace that would have allowed us to finish ahead of Ferrari. It was sort of in line with what we expected before coming here.” , said Stella.
“So it’s a bit of a surprise, especially in terms of race pace. We know we’re strong when we have new soft tires, we can do a good job on one lap, but when we string the laps together, we tend to lose a bit of performance.
“But I think somehow the track conditions and the cold, the fact that there was no sun, helped keep the rear tires in check. And so we was able to use the car’s strengths, as we saw in qualifying.”
“The rear axle in particular wasn’t overheating. Whereas if we look at the sprint I think we had a bit of overheating and Ferrari seemed to be more comfortable.”
Oscar Piastri, McLaren MCL38
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Piastri finished eighth after suffering damage in the safety car collision between Daniel Ricciardo and Lance Stroll, with Ricciardo’s RB marking his diffuser which Stella said cost him up to four tenths per lap.
“It was a big loss,” Stella said. “Oscar had damage to the diffuser, he lost a significant amount of rear downforce, equivalent to four tenths of a second, something like that.
“When we heard the numbers, I wasn’t very optimistic that we could have filled positions like Oscar was able to.
“His result is less noticeable than Lando’s, but I think he did a good job trying to figure out how to drive the car when he lost so much rear downforce. The car was oversteering a lot.”
“He managed to make some adaptations and keep [Lewis] Hamilton is behind, so that’s also a good result.”