Will McLaren fight for another podium at Spa? We’re going there with concerns, says team boss Andrea Stella

They started the season horribly, even this year it looked like an absolute disaster. But McLaren managed to bounce back and thanks to new upgrades, they’re back in contention for the podium. But the British team boss fears that the Spa-Francorchamps circuit could halt their progress.

Even when they unveiled their new monopost for this season, they announced that things would not be good this year. Is there a worse start to a new season when you almost write it off at the very beginning? This was the question many were asking, with the dire scenario starting to come true immediately.

Rookie Oscar Piastri failed to finish the inaugural Bahrain Grand Prix, with Lando Norris as team leader finishing only seventeenth. And that was with a two-lap deficit to the race winner.

It wasn’t any better in Saudi Arabia either, with McLaren at the tail end of the field in the first grand prix of the new season. Except in Australia, where the British team shone to the best of its ability – Norris finished sixth, Piastri eighth. Twelve points in the Constructors’ Cup.

But after that, it was one big embarrassment again, as McLaren scored only five points in the next five Grands Prix. The turning point came at the Red Bull Ring in Austria, where the team brought a big package of upgrades that worked.

McLaren scored 12 points in Austria, and brought another big upgrade to Silverstone. And with a bang, the performance of Norris and Piastri was such that they could fight for the podium with their cars, whereupon the mission became a success.

In any case, Norris finished on the podium both in the UK and at the Hungaroring. Third and second place from the last two grand prix – a real symbol of very solid progression.

McLaren has therefore scored 30 and 28 points respectively in the last two races and has secured fifth place in the Constructors’ Cup with a total of 87 points.

Alpine is now 40 points ahead of sixth place, but is still a full 80 points behind Ferrari in third. In addition, McLaren boss Andrea Stella fears that the Spa-Francorchamps circuit will halt their progress somewhat due to its typology.

Spa-Francorchamps? A specific and challenging circuit…

“Spa is talked about as one of the high-speed tracks. The fastest of the corners is 12 (Pouhon). A driver can also gain a lot of lap time in Turn 1 (La Source), as well as Turn 8 (Les Combes) and the last chicane,” Stella told reporters, including Racing News 365.

“We are going there with some concern because we are still losing time in the slower corners. It’s also a sprint race, so it will be important to set the car up for the demands of the track,” the McLaren boss explained.

“Spa is a very difficult track in terms of understanding the ground clearance because you can’t go over Eau Rogue with the car too low. So how quickly you can set the car up can affect the performance of the whole weekend,” he added.

Source: F1, Racing News 365