Stella reveals Piastri's performance loss due to the floor damage
McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella believes his team had the pace to challenge for two podium finishes at the Belgian Grand Prix but left Spa-Francorchamps frustrated after a series of setbacks limited both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.
Norris recovered strongly from 13th on the grid after taking fresh power unit components and briefly led the race with an alternative strategy before a poorly timed Virtual Safety Car and a technical issue during his pit stop dropped him to seventh.
On the other side of the garage, Piastri was running in podium contention until contact with Charles Leclerc at Turn 5 damaged the floor of his McLaren, costing him performance for the remainder of the race. The Australian eventually finished fifth after being overtaken late on by Lewis Hamilton.
Despite the disappointing results, Stella believes McLaren has made encouraging progress. The Italian said the MCL40 appeared much better suited to Spa than expected, although further development remains essential.
"We leave this weekend with mixed feelings but are encouraged by the underlying pace shown. It's clear our package adapted better to this circuit, and our main objective is now to ensure we can keep improving, and we know this will require upgrades to our car."
Stella also praised Mercedes High Performance Powertrains for delivering a reliable power unit, while acknowledging there is still performance to unlock.
"While the PU operated reliably and effectively, opportunities are still clearly possible in terms of PU exploitation, so we will keep on working with our partners at HPP to enable us to extract all of the lap time available."
Ultimately, he felt McLaren failed to convert its speed into the points it deserved. Turning to Norris' race, Stella believes the Briton had everything required to fight for a podium.
"However, we leave Spa-Francorchamps with a smaller points haul than our potential. Lando was very solid today, and with a clean race, the car had the pace to contend for a podium."
He pointed to a combination of unfortunate circumstances that prevented Norris from realising that potential.
"Without the penalty, the time we lost due to a technical issue in the pit stop, and a Safety Car timing that didn't suit our Hard tyre strategy, he would have been fighting at the front from his natural position of P3 on the grid."
Stella was equally complimentary of Piastri, who also showed podium-worthy pace before sustaining damage: "Oscar also drove very well and also had the potential to be on the podium."
The McLaren boss revealed that the floor damage from Piastri's contact with Leclerc carried a significant performance penalty.
"But the floor damage from the contact with Charles Leclerc cost us between two and three tenths of lap time, and forced him to push the tyres, which accelerated degradation in the second half of both stints."
Looking ahead to the next phase of the season, Stella identified the areas where McLaren must improve to consistently challenge Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull.
"We know we must improve our braking and cornering to challenge our main opponents on tracks like Hungary and the Netherlands."
McLaren has further upgrades planned for the second half of the campaign, although Stella cautioned that progress will come incrementally.
"We have upgrades coming for the second part of the season, and while not everything will be solved at once, our objective is clear - we want to consistently fight for podiums and, ultimately, victories."
