McLaren workforce principal Andrea Stella needs his workforce to give attention to turning into Components 1’s dominant workforce somewhat than celebrating overtaking Crimson Bull on the prime of the constructors’ championship desk.
Oscar Piastri’s victory within the Azerbaijan Grand Prix helped McLaren outscore Crimson Bull by 28 factors, taking it to a 20-point lead on the prime of the standings.
It’s the primary time in additional than a decade that McLaren has led championship, a streak courting again to the 2014 Australian Grand Prix, when Kevin Magnussen and Jenson Button opened the season with second and third in Melbourne.
The outcome additionally closes Crimson Bull’s 55-race run on the prime of the desk, having taken management of the standings on the 2022 Spanish Grand Prix.
The reigning constructors’ champions wouldn’t have been in a position to cling on to the lead, even when Sergio Perez had completed third somewhat than within the obstacles after his penultimate-lap crash with Carlos Sainz.
The change in place alerts the top of McLaren’s long term within the F1 wilderness and a outstanding turnaround in simply the final 18 months, with the workforce having began 2023 in the back of the grid earlier than bringing a sequence of fortune-changing upgrades to the automobile that may result in this 12 months’s title problem.
“As a milestone it’s undoubtedly large as a result of we have now to not overlook firstly of 2023 we have been final once we began the season, and now we lead the classification,” Stella mentioned.
“That’s an enormous milestone that has been attainable because of the good work, the laborious work and the standard of the work of the complete workforce, the assist from our shareholders the assist from our companions, the followers.
“You obtain this since you obtain it collectively.”
However Stella isn’t glad to have McLaren relaxation on its laurels, imploring his workforce to focus on domination of the game somewhat than easy success.
“My approach of going racing and for the best way I would love the workforce to go racing, this second is already over,” he mentioned. “We don’t take a look at the classification; we simply give attention to executing at each single occasion, delivering the upgrades that we nonetheless plan to take to a few of the future races, as a result of the automobile as a matter of truth continues to be not quick sufficient to create some boring races, which isn’t within the pursuits of Components 1 however is within the undoubtedly the best way during which we wish to go racing.”
Stella additionally denied the accuracy of the rising paddock consensus that McLaren has the quickest automobile within the sport, insisting that the frontrunning pack was too finely balanced to select a standout chief.
“In the case of McLaren I usually hear, ‘McLaren greatest automobile, McLaren greatest automobile’. I feel this isn’t within the numbers. I feel within the numbers McLaren is the very best automobile in some sort of circuits, like Barcelona, Hungary and Zandvoort for good technical causes, however right here I don’t assume McLaren loved any benefit over Ferrari and I feel not even over Crimson Bull.
“We now have work to do by way of making the automobile quicker, and we have to stay humble and we have to hold the ft on the bottom, as a result of we see that in equity there’s not a lot to select in any respect between the 4 prime groups.
“It’s simply very, very balanced and right here I feel the execution by the drivers and the execution by the workforce is simply what makes the distinction.”
