"A rare weekend with a few uncharacteristic mistakes," claims Stella
On the back of an unusually tough weekend for McLaren, team boss Andrea Stella claims that championship leader Oscar Piastri endured "a rare weekend with a few uncharacteristic mistakes."
Championship leader Oscar Piasti suffered a disastrous opening lap, jumping the lights and then activating anti-stall from P9 before crashing out at Turn 5 having dropped to the back of the field.
Lando Norris finished seventh – the same position the McLaren driver started having struggled to make any progress through the sole pit stop sequence. His team-mate’s retirement had opened the door for Norris to eat into Piastri’s lead in the drivers’ standings, but he only managed to reduce the gap by six points.
Reflecting on McLaren's weekend, team boss Andrea Stella admitted that the Woking-based outfit had expected the Baku street circuit to pose a few challenges and highlight the strengths of some of its rival teams.
"A difficult weekend at a circuit we knew would be tricky for us. It was confirmation once again that our competitors are not far from us and at some circuits, faster.
"For Oscar, it was a rare weekend with a few uncharacteristic mistakes, but he is already processing the weekend and taking all the learnings ahead of the next round. On Lando's side, we didn't give him a car that was in condition to overtake. He otherwise drove a solid race."
McLaren mechanics had an unusually busy Saturday evening after Piastri suffered a crash in the dying moments of qualifying. The incident meant that the Woking-based squad had to change Piastri's chassis overnight, albeit it did not trigger a grid penalty as Piastri received components of the same specification that he had used in qualifying.
"A big thank you to team trackside for all of their work, especially rebuilding Oscar's car after Qualifying and to the team back in Woking for their great support. We will review our efforts and ensure we come back stronger in Singapore."
