McLaren Plans Multiple Strategies to Take on Red Bull in Belgian GP

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has given his verdict on the Belgian Grand Prix sprint race at Spa-Francorchamps, revealing that the cars have reached an aerodynamic “maturity.” Thus, he remarked that his team was considering several strategies for the qualifying session and main race, suggesting that a victory remains in sight.

The sprint race saw a tight battle between Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen, with Lando Norris joining the party halfway. Piastri started on pole position after breaking the lap record at Spa on Friday, but Verstappen was quick to pass him in the early stages.

The four-time world champion maintained the lead as the clean air ahead played to his advantage. Unfortunately for Piastri, he had to deal with turbulent air, and given the high-speed nature of the circuit, he struggled to pass Verstappen, despite maintaining a consistent gap of nearly half a second.

Stella pointed out that on a circuit like Spa, the car behind is at an advantage due to the long stretch that offers opponents a good enough slipstream. He said after the sprint race:

“Well, this was a sprint where not much happened apart from the situation in the first lap, which is actually quite typical in Spa. Not necessarily you want to be the first car leaving corner one and then having to stay full throttle for 17 seconds – you become a bit exposed to the car behind.

“So we saw this peculiarity today, and then in fairness, it was difficult to regain the position not only because of the top speed, but because we couldn’t stay close enough in the second sector.

“So again, this is a bit of a peculiarity of somehow the maturity that these cars have achieved from an aerodynamic point of view. Now the slipstream effect starts to be important.”

When asked if P2 and P3 would be good starting positions at Spa, Stella laughed, saying the top two positions are the goal for qualifying, but didn’t rule out other strategies that could play out to the team’s advantage. He said:

“Well, at times during the sprint, I actually thought, what is the best position we want to qualify — P1, P2? Certainly, it won’t be easy, but we will try, and I think in the race, we also have to remember that there are more options from a strategic point of view.

“Tire degradation will be more important, so definitely we are here to try and win this race. It was also encouraging to see that both drivers seemed to have the pace today. I think if we were in the lead, we might have had the pace to just open up a gap compared to the others. So we look forward to qualifying and the remainder of the weekend.”