McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has dismissed Martin Brundle's assertion that the Woking outfit would have had "uncomfortable" meetings in the wake of missing out on British Grand Prix victory.
The papaya squad failed to claim its second win of the season at Silverstone. First it opted not to double-stack Oscar Piastri behind Lando Norris as the rain worsened, ruling the Australian driver out of contention for victory.
Later, McLaren fitted Norris with the red-walled Pirellis, despite having a fresh set of the optimum medium tyres available. The 24-year-old could not sufficiently manage the degradation and fell behind Max Verstappen to finish in third place.
Although race-winner Lewis Hamilton was able to make good on the soft tyre, there was a sense that it was a missed opportunity for McLaren - after finishing in second position in each of the five rounds between the Miami Grand Prix and the weekend at Silverstone.
This led Sky Sports F1 commentator and presenter Martin Brundle to put it to Stella that there may have been "some uncomfortable meetings" at McLaren because the team "could have should have won" the British Grand Prix.
"I'm not sure what you mean with 'uncomfortable'," Stella responded before the ex-F1 driver clarified what he meant, adding whether any meetings had been heavy going or not.
"That's not how you run a Formula 1 team," Stella continued. "A Formula 1 team is not run by emotions - otherwise it would collapse and implode pretty rapidly, no?
"Because Formula 1 is a rollercoaster and now the rollercoaster has more and more goals in a season, because it's 24 [races] - so think if you run 24 events like that."
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McLaren set on taking the positives from Silverstone
Stella did not shy away from the disappointment felt throughout the team, instead underlining how the culture at McLaren embraced the painful episode, as it strives to take the positives from the mistakes made.
In his rejection of Brundle's suggestion, the Italian highlighted the "reassuring and encouraging" nature of the any post-British Grand Prix meetings.
"For us at Silverstone, obviously there's some pain, because we were in the lead, and somehow we saw that we couldn't capitalise," the 53-year-old added.
"But we have a certain approach to missed opportunities. For us, missed opportunities are a way to grow, a way to understand where are our gaps to be world champions - and that's where we focus.
"The focus is on the opportunity, on the growth, on how we can improve. The focus is not on the missed element of the opportunity.
"So I think, actually, the briefings were very reassuring and encouraging - we could consolidate our culture, which is a positive, constructive culture. And for us, this is just a position to be stronger next time... nothing that was too emotional, just constructive."
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