Andrea Stella, McLaren’s team boss, is taking into account a return of Aston Martin, which performed well this weekend for the first time in several weeks. McLaren and Aston Martin are battling for fourth place in the constructors’ championship. Although it seemed like the battle was over, Aston Martin made a comeback this weekend in Brazil.
McLaren currently sits fourth in the Constructors’ Championship and has a 21-point lead over Aston Martin. It looked like Aston Martin was unable to compete with McLaren, but after Brazil McLaren must be on their guard. Aston Martin achieved a podium finish with Fernando Alonso, while his teammate, Lance Stroll, finished in fifth place.
The profit has not yet been determined
‘That was quite surprising. Normally Mercedes seems to do well when the wear and tear is high,” Stella admitted to Motorsport.com. “We have to recognize that Aston Martin seems to be back to the level it was at the start of the season. For us that is something to take into account in the championship,” the team boss adds.
Although Aston Martin seems to be strong again, this does not mean that McLaren is weakening. Stella indicates that they will simply pay more attention to Aston Martin. “We are not going to change our approach, but we have to be careful that they can still score a lot of points in the last races,” says the McLaren team boss.
Norris versus Verstappen
McLaren performed well in Brazil, with Lando Norris taking second place. For a while it seemed that the young Briton could compete with Max Verstappen, but the team was just not strong enough. “Our tires started to warm up,” says the team boss. ‘We had to be sensible and set our own lap times. Even Alonso was not far away from us at that stage. We have performed well in that regard,” he further explains.
However, the team had no success in their battle against the Dutch world champion. “We wanted to win,” Stella said. ‘That’s why we opted for a fresh set of softs. We wanted to put Verstappen in an unusual position and see what we could do. Although we were unable to take the lead, we were close,” said the team boss.
