F1 | Stella: “Ferrari in front, in the race the tire doesn't cover our limits”

The first three rounds of the season saw a McLaren place on several occasions as the third force in the championship, behind Ferrari, who instead was able to be the most concrete threat to Red Bull. However, for the Japanese round in Suzuka the expectations for the Woking team were different and the hope was precisely to position themselves at least ahead of the Italian team.

Suzuka, in fact, was among the tracks that, on paper, should have best suited the characteristics of the MCL38, given the numerous fast corners and the few slow corners which, in recent events, have been one of the British team's weak points. A problem that, in reality, McLaren has been carrying around for some time, so much so that it was also one of the great limitations of last season's car, which struggled to turn the front at low speeds, suffering from annoying understeer.

As expected, McLaren actually showed some good signs in Suzuka, among other things with a not so large gap to Red Bull in qualifying, although Verstappen himself said that, perhaps, there was still something to extract from the his tour.

The interesting aspect, however, is how the advantage over Ferrari varied during the weekend, from qualifying to the race. It is clear that the Red team has made big improvements both in terms of speed in fast corners and in terms of tire management, as demonstrated by the single stop then chosen by Charles Leclerc in the race, among other things by varying tactics along the way .

McLaren were a little disappointed with their pace on Sunday. Team principal Andrea Stella admitted that the Cavallino team was simply faster, which is also why he tried to defend the team when asked about the ineffective strategy that forced Lando Norris to bring forward the stop on two occasions. Despite not having the pace of the Red, in Australia McLaren was not that far from Ferrari, even in the race, and there was hope that Suzuka could change the values ​​on the field.

In fact, on Saturday Lando Norris was able to take a nice third place, putting the first SF-24 behind him by about two tenths. The Red team proved to be very competitive in the second sector, but not so in the first half-time, partly due to the difficulties highlighted in managing the tires in the single lap, both from the point of view of the warm-up and of administration during the entire session. so much so that the drivers also tried different approaches during qualifying.

One of the explanations between the difference in performance between Saturday and Sunday according to Stella is precisely linked to this aspect, to the fact that on the one hand the MCL38 was able to extract the maximum with little fuel on board and new tyres, while Ferrari struggled more in realizing the pace on the flying lap. It is no coincidence that Norris also underlined how perhaps in qualifying the Woking team achieved something more than the general value of the weekend: “We simply did very well, we excelled, I did some very good laps, perhaps they made us seem perhaps too strong, while the match was a little closer to the reality of the values ​​on the pitch”.

Oscar Piastri, McLaren MCL38

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

The gaps are quite small behind Red Bull, especially between McLaren, Mercedes and Aston Martin, which means that a few cents can make the difference. For example, Oscar Piastri found himself in sixth position behind Fernando Alonso and this had a negative impact on his race, so much so that he remained blocked until the checkered flag. This is the demonstration of how, this year too, Saturday's performance can have an influence on the race, although, in reality, we have seen how during the race the values ​​on the pitch tend to emerge more clearly.

When asked whether Saturday's result was more due to an excellent performance from McLaren or a Ferrari that had not been able to extract the maximum from the car, Stella said it was a mix of elements: “I think that it's a mix of both things”, before adding that, with new tyres, some of the MCL38's limitations were hidden at Suzuka, especially in slow speed.

“I think that with the new tires we managed to compensate for some of the limitations we have at the moment, such as low speed performance, because at that moment the new tire offers you more grip and you compensate. And we were able to defend ourselves from this point of view. For example, we didn't lose much time at the hairpin or other low-speed corners,” confirmed the Team Principal, who rightly highlighted this aspect.

In fact, McLaren did not suffer a large gap in the slow corners, except at the exit in the traction phase, but still saw a significant gap in the first sector, more specifically in the fast sequence: not very large, but in any case present. On Friday, Norris had suggested how McLaren should seek compromises, in order to find something more in the slow sections, but without penalizing the car's strengths too much. The new tyre, as was the case with Ferrari in 2023, helped hide certain limitations of the car on the flying lap, which however later emerged in the race.

Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38, Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-24, Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin AMR24

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

“In the race, with the hard compounds, every lap the tire loses a tenth. So, after 10 laps the tire is one second slower. I think this exposes the car's weaknesses a little more. For this reason, we suffered a little more in the race than in qualifying,” added Stella, without forgetting that, in fact, Suzuka is a very aggressive track on tires.

“I think we can do something against Ferrari, with today's level of competitiveness, you can only beat them if you are on a track where you can keep other cars behind. But here the degradation is so high and overtaking is possible if there is a difference in tire and performance.”

“So I don't think it was possible to do much more. Maybe with Lando, if we had given up on trying for the podium, we could have finished ahead of Leclerc. This is, if anything, the only thing we could think of, but we wanted to fight for the podium,” added Stella.