Andrea Stella, McLaren Formula 1 boss, dismissed the claims of his counterpart at the Mercedes, Toto Wolff. The Austrian made claims of Woking team making one second advantage succeeding to its recent major upgrades.
McLaren introduced the first two stages of its upgrade scheme at the Austrian and British Grand Prix. The team will conclude the current scheme with the last upgrade which will cause “pretty much every aerodynamic part on the car changes”.
Initial schedule of completion for upgrades has delayed from Hungarian Grand Prix owing to design and production timelines. Nonetheless, Norris remained on podium behind the race winner Max Verstappen.
After witnessing McLaren form to beat Merecedes, Wolff believes that their competitor team had gain an advantage of one second per lap.
The Austrian said: “You can see how McLaren has leapfrogged everybody else with an update. They didn’t expect to come in that powerful.
“Whatever it was, they gained a second probably. And they leapfrogged Aston Martin and Ferrari, who we’ve seen as really strong contenders at the beginning of the season, and now they’re nowhere.”
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Stella dismissed the claims of his counterpart while claiming that he is exaggerating the gain. However, he did not quantify the gain that McLaren achieved
Stella said: “In fairness, we haven’t done a proper numerical estimate.
“We had our own internal estimate based on what we saw in the aerodynamic maps. And then you simulate these and this gives you a number, which I cannot share really, but it wasn’t one second.
“So, I think, somehow the behaviour of your car and the development of your car kind of helps with tyres at the same time. This gives you further lap time benefit.”
McLaren downplayed its gains and pushes for further gains as the season passes through. Stella moved to keep himself and team in check for the rest of the season. He admits that the team have to make progress in low-speed corners.
“We certainly come out of this event encouraged that we have made progress in medium speed,” said the Italian.
“That’s what we certainly see from comparison with our competition.
“We also see that we do lose time in the three low-speed corners. So confirming that there is still work to do in low speed.”
