McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella has warned that the layout of Spa could bring out weaknesses in its Formula 1 car during the Belgian Grand Prix. Over recent races in Great Britain and Hungary, McLaren has proved the closest challenger to Red Bull and Max Verstappen, with Lando Norris finishing second in both events with Oscar Piastri fourth and fifth, respectively. Norris had downplayed McLaren's chances of repeating its Silverstone success heading into the Hungaroring weekend owing to the lack of high-speed corners that suit the car, but qualified third before securing a third career runner-up spot. While Spa is renowned for its high-speed corners, especially in the middle sector of the lap, Stella has identified the slow chicanes and hairpins as a potential Achilles' heel for the team.
Stella's concern
"Spa is normally mentioned as one of the high-speed tracks," Stella told media including RacingNews365. "In reality, the highest-speed corner is corner [12, Pouhon] which is flat in Qualifying - and there is a lot of lap-time in Corner 1 (La Source) which is 80kph (49.7mph), in Corner 8 (Les Combes) which is 100kph (62mph) and in the last chicane was is 90kph (55.9mph). "I go with some [trepidation] because in these corners at the moment, we see that we lose time, so that is where we are. "It is also a Sprint event, so in addition to outright performance, it will be important to rapidly adapt the car to the demands of the track. "Spa is a very demanding track in terms of understanding the ride height, because you can't run too low through Eau Rogue, because otherwise you would have problems under the car. "So how rapidly you can set-up the car can make a difference for the entire week's performance."
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