Following a woeful start to the season, McLaren boss, Andrea Stella insists that the Woking outfit could have secured a double points finish.

Rookie Oscar Piastri retired just 13 laps into the race, while teammate Lando Norris finished last, 2 laps down on race winner Max Verstappen, after suffering a pneumatic pressure leak which necessitated numerous pit stops throughout the race.

The Woking outfit was already heading into the weekend on the back foot, with Stella admitting as early as the launch that the car was far from perfect, while Zak Brown was only "hopeful" that the team could battle for fourth in the standings.

Clearly a 'glass half full' man, Stella preferred to look at the positives.

"The most positive element is that without issues Lando would have been a strong contender for points," he said. "The pace of the car in the race was almost beyond expectation.

"In the race we see some reward of the work we did over the winter in trying to improve the interaction between the car and the tyres," he added.

"This was certainly a strong position on Lando's side, but also Oscar actually was having good degradation in the first stint. He overtook cars, it was a very tight race, so we could have been in the points with two cars, that's the most positive outcome of this event."

Asked about his previous comments in terms of his unease at the development of the MCL60, the first significant upgrade not scheduled until Azerbaijan, Stella admitted that he was actually pleasantly surprised by the car's performance in Bahrain.

"Before I thought Q3 was difficult, and points would have been difficult, but they were up for grabs. Let's say it like this, more than I thought.

"The other element we have to acknowledge is the midfield, not only the midfield, but the racing is close; without the VSC I'm not sure there would have been people one lap down without issues."

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by Bill Hopgood, 10/03/2023 21:50

"I do wonder if the performance of Norris was better than expected as he had better tyres due to changing them more often than the rest of the field.

That being said, hopefully that was taken into account in Stella's comments."

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2. Posted by kenji, 08/03/2023 13:24

"McLaren seem to have lost the ability to build and race a consistently decent car. I have just read Key's explanation regards the '15mm' and subsequent '4 weeks' of not knowing which direction to follow as the catalyst for the Bahrain disaster. What I'd like to know what connection there is between Key's admission and the subsequent failure of firstly the 'gearbox' on Piastri's car and secondly the 'pneumatics' failure on Norris's car as neither is, AFAIK, a function of Key's analysis. "

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3. Posted by Max Noble, 08/03/2023 12:37

"On this basis me in my mid 1980’s RX-7 was set to be a contender… I mean seriously… (it was a truely wonderful RX for those that care…)

Oh Look! The Titanic has just docked in New York!
"

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Norris could have been a contender, insists Stella

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