McLaren team principal Andrea Stella says Max Verstappen is definitely back in the title fight after his victory at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Verstappen’s victory in Baku came for the second consecutive time, following the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, in a race in which championship leader Oscar Piastri crashed on the opening lap. Verstappen is still Piastri’s Adrift with 69 points, but he scored 35 points from the Australian lead in the last two races, and Stella says Red Bull’s performance improvements make the defending champion a real threat.
“I think Singapore should return to the kind of circuit characteristics that we should be able to fully express our car’s potential,” Stella told SiriusXM. “But I don’t think what Red Bull is showing at this point is simply circuit-related.
“I think they’ve made real improvements. They upgraded at Monza. They seem to have found a way to exploit these upgrades in their setup. I’ve already said (after qualifying) Max and Red Bull are regular candidates for victory.
“So there’s a lot of work ahead of us. We need to focus and keep improving, and we’ll go again.”
Stella says the fact that Rand Norris was limited to Azerbaijan’s seventh place is a sign that McLaren was beaten at a pure pace despite a sloppy weekend from the team.
“The trucks we knew were not necessarily the best fit for our car’s strengths, but somehow we didn’t take advantage of the availability. In the race, the cars weren’t fast enough for everyone to pass, so Rand spent all his races in traffic.
“There are a few things to do to improve the car. We need to look at the setup this year (because there’s no more development. I also think there’s learning to be able to design a very fast car for some kind of circuit, but when we have these kinds of brakes and shorter angles, we’re struggling a bit.
“Learn a lot of learning for the driver and the team, then we need to see the operation as well. The pit stops aren’t fast again and there were actually some issues with reliability.
