McLaren answer vital question after 'doubts' and 'very weird' concern

Andrea Stella has revealed that McLaren feared its Baku upgrade package had made the MCL40 slower, with the team only able to put those doubts to rest after the Singapore Grand Prix.

The Woking-based squad introduced a significant bodywork update at Baku, featuring reworked sidepods and cooling, aimed at boosting straight-line speed around the Azerbaijan circuit's long back straight.

But Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri struggled for pace there and at the following round in Bahrain, leaving the team unable to isolate whether the upgrade itself was to blame.

Matters were not helped by what Stella described as "very weird" data from the Sepang circuit, where unusually rough asphalt disrupted McLaren's usual correlation between trackside readings and its simulation tools.

Speaking to media, including RacingNews365, Stella explained the uncertainty that built up over the two rounds.

"If we take Baku and Malaysia in isolation, we were not very competitive," said the McLaren team principal.

"We had doubts about the package we introduced in Baku; we never expected it to be a big step from a lap-time point of view.

"But because we upgraded two cars at a single time, we had no comparison. We thought, 'Have we made the car slower?'

"At least we were in condition to clarify that that's not the case, which is an important question that we were able to answer in Singapore, going back to a track that is just a little bit more normal than Malaysia, where the track roughness just made the data look very weird. But we understand that it had to do with the track roughness."

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Baku and Sepang slump

McLaren has endured a sharp downturn compared with last season, when Norris and Piastri regularly fought for wins — and the former won the F1 drivers' title to go with a second successive constructors' crown.

This year the team has had to settle for third in the constructors' standings, 239 points adrift of runaway leaders Mercedes and in danger from Red Bull behind with the gap now just seven points.

That is despite Norris being the class of the field in Hungary, Zandvoort and Madrid, where he won twice and finished third.

Since then McLaren has slipped badly, with Norris ninth at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia and fourth in Singapore, while Piastri has not finished higher than fifth across the last four rounds.

Stella pointed to specific technical factors behind the Azerbaijan Grand Prix and Sepang slump.

However, he was pleased that the final leg of the triple-header offered some much-needed clarity.

"And Baku, in which we think that the power unit optimisation played a significant role in terms of lap time," the Italian added.

"We know that this is not only power unit optimisation; there are a few more things on the chassis side that, in the long straights, penalise McLaren in the current configuration, like the [gear] ratios.

"So we had doubts for a couple of races, but we welcome the fact that we were able to clarify that there's nothing wrong going on..."