McLaren 'entertained' by fierce FIA debate after Barcelona domination

Andrea Stella says McLaren has been "entertained" by the fierce debate prompted by the FIA's flexi-wing rule changes for the Spanish GP. 

The governing body introduced stricter flexi-wing tests for the Barcelona round after almost a year of inspections and analysis which started at the 2024 Belgian GP. 

McLaren was expected to be one of the teams most affected by the changes, but throughout practice, it crushed the field, with a seven-tenth gap to Max Verstappen in FP3.

In qualifying, Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris locked out the front-row, with Verstappen 0.302s slower in third than the pole-sitter.

Reflecting on McLaren's first front-row lockout in Spain since Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard in 1998, team principal Stella addressed the technical directive now in force.

"Let's start with the TD, I think the TD was a big talking point, but it was quite immaterial," Stella told Sky Sports F1. 

"Formula 1 is quite technical and we can talk about it forever, but when you look at the numbers associated with the TD, it was always going to be minor. 

"It was entertaining to have this kind of debate, but in our numbers and simulations, everything was very small.

"So we were not concerned from this point of view and in terms of the drivers, Verstappen is there, I certainly wouldn't exclude Verstappen from fighting for the championship."