McLaren concede to F1 'reality check' after painful setbacks

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has conceded the last two rounds of the season have served as a “reality check” for the squad. 

McLaren failed to score points in Canada, with Lando Norris retiring from the race with a gearbox issue.

The reigning world champion had an early stoppage once again on Sunday in Monaco due to a power unit concern, while Oscar Piastri managed to secure fourth place to get some points on the board.

However, it was unable to get near the front-running pace in Monaco, marking a far cry from its performance in Japan and Miami, where it appeared to be Mercedes' closest challenger.

“There’s certainly an important reality check that comes from Canada and Monaco,” Stella told media including RacingNews365.

“And the reality check is first of all looking at the facts, we have not been fast enough, I would say especially in terms of race in both Canada and here.

“We have not been reliable enough and when we look at reliability, we have had issues pretty much in all areas of the car. It’s not like a specific area.

“Today was power unit. We have had other issues with the power unit. I would say this has probably been the most important area for reliability, but for Lando in Canada it was the gearbox.”

McLaren will hit the track once again this weekend in Barcelona, where the team will be hoping for a step forward.

While Stella acknowledged McLaren understands where the reliability issues are coming from, he hinted that it can do little to prevent them from happening at the start of a new regulation cycle. 

“There's a performance assessment, and there is a reliability assessment that we are doing, looking at Canada and looking at Monaco,” he said.

“We understand these reliability issues in isolation, we can fix them, but obviously, when you have so many issues, it may be symptomatic of the fact that the project is still relatively young.”