McLaren team principal Andrea Stella explains: What went wrong in qualifying

The McLaren team were left disappointed at the end of qualifying in Mexico, as Lando Norris had set the fastest time in both the third and final free practice session and in Q2, leading to expectations that the Formula 1 world champion would be in contention for the top positions in the final session as well.

In the end, however, Norris had to settle for the sixth-fastest lap, whilst his team-mate Oscar Piastri had already been eliminated ahead of him in 13th place. The fact that the Australian will start from 12th place following Liam Lawson’s disqualification is little consolation given the high expectations within the Papaya camp.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella explained: “The car seems more competitive here than it did in the last qualifying session in Austin. At times, it even looked as though we might be in contention for pole, which is why we went into qualifying feeling very optimistic.”

“I think the performance was still there at the start of qualifying. However, at some point the car showed the inconsistency we’ve been seeing with the MCL40 this year, and that caused problems for Oscar in Q2 and Lando in Q3,” the Italian continued.

And the engineer explained: “When the drivers try to push a bit harder because they feel the grip is there, it suddenly disappears. And that’s a strange behaviour of the car, which makes life very difficult for the drivers. I think this is exacerbated when conditions are difficult, as they are here or in Austin, where the wind made things harder.”

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“But that’s just the way it is – we have to work on it; that’s a responsibility the team must take on to improve the car,” Stella added. And when asked whether, with hindsight, they had to admit that they should have sent Piastri out onto the track in Q2 with two new sets of soft tyres, he emphasised: “It’s easier to assess things in hindsight, but we don’t really want to dwell on that. We’d rather focus on how we can improve and how we can put Oscar in a position to get back up the order. He certainly deserves to finish in the points, and that’s our main goal.”