McLaren issue response to shock Lewis Hamilton F1 claim

McLaren boss Andrea Stella has rejected Lewis Hamilton's claim that the world champions have extracted more performance from their Miami upgrades than expected.

For the Miami GP, following the five-week break after the Japanese GP, teams delivered huge upgrade packages, with McLaren and Ferrari among the biggest on the grid - the latter bringing 11 major pieces.

McLaren was able to use its new parts to dominate in the Sprint race before Lando Norris only lost victory in the grand prix owing to Kimi Antonelli undercutting him for Mercedes, whilst Hamilton was the lead Ferrari in sixth, after his car suffered severe damage in a first-lap clash with Franco Colapinto. 

During the weekend, Hamilton claimed that he had heard McLaren's upgrade was worth "much more than they anticipated" in terms of performance.

However, McLaren team principal Stella has rejected that idea.

"He was suggesting that we got more [from our upgrades] than we were expecting," Stella began to media, including RacingNews365, seeking confirmation of the question. 

"I would like to say yes, but the answer is no, like pretty much what we measure in the data is consistent with what we were expecting from the development tools.

"So I would say that we are in line with our expectations. 

"If anything, the number of components we brought to Miami, quantity-wise, is less than Ferrari, and there will be a few more to come in the coming races.

"But in terms of what we obtained for these components, it is pretty much in line with expectations."