Stella praises Verstappen's Brazil performance, defends McLaren calls

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella believes Max Verstappen delivered one of the best wins of his career in the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, but defended his own team’s calls that limited it to sixth and eighth. Verstappen won a wet race from 17th on the grid, climbing through the field to secure victory nearly 20 seconds ahead of the two Alpine drivers. Lando Norris started on pole position but slipped to sixth behind George Russell and Charles Leclerc by the end, and Stella believes the result was a combination of Verstappen’s performance and the McLaren lacking raw pace in the conditions. “The first thing I would like to say is to congratulate Max for one of his best victories of his career, from where he started,” Stella said. “A great drive and also great pace, because he moved up the field thanks to the pace and also thanks to making a brave decision in the situation that then led to the red flag, by not stopping and staying out on tires that were relatively worn at the time. “This played to the advantage of Max and the advantage of Alpine, and I think even Alpine also definitely deserve congratulations for the double podium finish. “In terms of the race itself, (it was) dominated by many episodes. Together with the episodes that I will cover, we also have to acknowledge that our car didn’t enjoy any particular pace advantage. “We weren’t the fastest car out there on intermediate tires like we were on dry tires. So if anything, there’s the first opportunity to look into how we can go faster with intermediate tires.” Norris was fighting Russell for the lead for the first part of the race but lost out after changing tires before a red flag period, and Stella said it was easier for Verstappen and Alpine to gamble at that stage given their relative positions adrift of the battle for the win. “For Lando, a loss of one position at the start, then we were faster than Russell but no way to overtake, and then at some stage when the rain started to increase, both drivers in fairness acknowledged that we needed new rubber to stay out in those conditions,” he said. “The reason why this decision didn’t pay off is actually the rain became very intense, leading, together with the crash, to a red flag. “We thought at the time that with the Virtual Safety Car, and the increased amount of water on track, it was important to go on the new tire. And I think without the red flag, and with a little less intensity – which is always difficult to predict – it would have been quite difficult for the people that did not change the tires. “Sometimes you look brilliant because you commit to something, and it’s always easy to commit when you are behind, and you look like a hero. “I am here congratulating them for their decisions, but at the same time I back the decision that we made because it came with the full agreement of the drivers, the pit wall, and also a little but of reason as to ‘we need to make sure that we stay on track because we compete for points, we compete for both championships, and we need to finish races’. “Personally I am not very comfortable leaving a car out there with tires that are pretty worn with that amount of water. So without the red flag, we would be commenting on another race here.” While Russell went on to finish fourth, Norris dropped to sixth after twice running off track, but Stella said those incidents were more car-related than driver error. “Lando lost a couple of positions because of lock-ups,” he said. “We struggled with these lock-ups all weekend in wet conditions with both drivers, and I think from a car point of view this is also something that we need to look into. “For Oscar the race was, in a way, a little stuck in this seventh or eighth position. No way to overtake, and then we got the penalty – which was fair, deserved. We paid it at the end, and thankfully it only cost us one position. So that’s the summary of the day. Eventful, many episodes, some of the decisions didn’t pay off as we expected but we were also thinking they were quite sensible at the time.”