McLaren team principal Andrea Stella declared the team has “definitely raised the bar” on reliability after Lando Norris delivered a clean podium finish at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix, but acknowledged Ferrari’s upgraded pace has widened the performance gap McLaren must close.
Norris qualified fourth, more than three-tenths behind pole-sitter George Russell, and maintained position throughout the race before capitalizing when Kimi Antonelli retired to secure third place. Oscar Piastri finished fifth after Charles Leclerc also retired, giving McLaren a solid double-points haul that keeps the team third in the constructors’ standings, 49 points behind Ferrari.
The result marked a welcome return to form after consecutive retirements for Norris in Canada and Monaco due to reliability failures that had cast doubt over the MCL40’s durability.
“It was a relatively calm and clean weekend from a reliability point of view,” Stella told Formula1.com. “We cannot forget that in some of the previous weekends, we didn’t only have problems on Sunday, but we also had problems affecting practice. We have definitely raised the bar, the level of attention, and used situations we had in the previous races to reset and increase the standards in the way we do things.”
Stella cautioned against judging reliability on a single race, saying he would prefer to assess it across a full season. He credited the improvement to a collaborative effort between McLaren, its suppliers, and engine partner HPP.
While the reliability progress was encouraging, Stella was candid about the performance deficit McLaren faces, particularly against Ferrari, who brought upgrades to Barcelona that helped Lewis Hamilton secure his first Grand Prix victory with the Scuderia.
“For us it’s good news that in these conditions, we were able to stay with Mercedes,” Stella said. “But at the same time, there’s a competitor, Ferrari, that were able to upgrade their car. They gained performance, and now they lean on winning races. Definitely there’s more to do with the car performance.”
Stella identified specific weaknesses heading into Round 8 in Austria, noting that Ferrari currently possesses the strongest chassis on the grid. He pointed to McLaren’s struggles in medium-speed and low-speed corners, where the team lacks grip compared to the front-runners, despite remaining competitive in high-speed sections.
“Very clear indications, as we knew already, that we have to add grip to the car of an aerodynamic nature, so add load onto the tyres, and then we also have to improve the way we interact with the tyres in terms of qualifying preparation,” Stella explained. “We need to add aerodynamic performance, we need to add solutions for better tyre exploitation.”
The team principal also flagged excessive tyre degradation in race conditions as an area requiring attention, giving McLaren what he described as “quite a clear agenda from a performance point of view” as the season approaches its midpoint.