McLaren encouraged by F1 ‘near misses’

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has highlighted his squad is using its recent “near misses” to build a positive atmosphere at the team.

The Woking-based squad has come close to winning several grands prix in the opening half of the current F1 season.

Its sole win of the year so far came in Miami, where Lando Norris bagged the first victory of his career.

While the team has continued to showcase strong pace ever since, Norris has been forced to settle for a series of second-place results.

After rising out of the midfield pack just over one year ago, Stella stated McLaren missing out on more wins can't distract from its encouraging rise in performance.

“The near misses are first of all a point of view of good news right, we didn’t have this kind of near misses until 12 months ago,” Stela told media including RacingNews365.

“First of all we need to look at the positives, we need to look at the fact that the team is in condition to be frustrated today because we are P3 in the podium, the other driver P4 [at the British Grand Prix].

“Once again the team that scored more points, so if we don’t start from the positives from the building side we are going to be the ones that build and destroy.

“We will stay always at the same level so this is responsibility is for everyone.”

McLaren sharing responsibility for mistakes

McLaren's latest missed opportunity came at Silverstone last weekend, with Norris pitting for a set of Soft tyres for the final stint of the race.

The choice proved to be the wrong one, with Lewis Hamilton going on to win ahead of Max Verstappen - however, Stella asserted there is no single person to blame for its mishaps.

“While Lando and Oscar don’t have responsibility in some of the calls that today we call missed opportunities, we all, drivers included, have the responsibility to keep building,” he said.

“When we have days in which we have a missed opportunity, it’s the best opportunity to keep building. 

“We are racing against the teams that have won championships and championships and they are pretty stable in terms of the people that are there.

“They are even familiar with this racing at the top in changeable conditions and so on. 

“From this point of view we are I think more of an under construction side and we take these near misses, the frustration will go very rapidly but the opportunity will come soon so we need to be ready.”