{"id":256388,"date":"2026-05-03T08:58:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T08:58:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/256388\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T08:58:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T08:58:17","slug":"mclaren-boss-reveals-why-team-fell-short-in-miami-grand-prix-qualifying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/256388\/","title":{"rendered":"McLaren Boss Reveals Why Team Fell Short in Miami Grand Prix Qualifying"},"content":{"rendered":"

McLaren<\/a> arrived in Miami with what Andrea Stella<\/a> had described pre-weekend as an \u201centirely new<\/a>\u201d car<\/a>: a substantial aerodynamic overhaul delivered across the five-week gap in the calendar.<\/p>\n

The Sprint result backed it up as Lando Norris<\/a> won the Saturday race, finishing ahead of his teammate Oscar Piastri<\/a>. Then Saturday\u2019s Grand<\/a> Prix qualifying came along and reshuffled the order in ways Stella couldn\u2019t fully explain away.<\/p>\n

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Verstappen secured his third pole of the year, just 0.065 seconds clear of Norris in second, while Kimi Antonelli<\/a> put his Mercedes<\/a> third on the grid to outpace Piastri. McLaren had the pace on paper. Turning it into a clean lap when it mattered most was the problem.<\/p>\n

Wind and Power Unit Consistency<\/p>\n

Stella\u2019s explanation to Sky Sports F1 covers a few overlapping factors rather than a single issue. \u201c<\/p>\n

After Sprint Qualifying we said that actually multiple cars<\/a> could have been in pole position,\u201d he said. \u201cMercedes struggled with deployment, Leclerc made a couple of mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Grand Prix qualifying, the conditions changed and this negatively affected the papaya team. \u201cThe wind was very different,\u201d the team boss continued. \u201cWe had a few things to manage with the power unit consistency and the drivers<\/a> needed to find the rhythm and it looks like some other teams have been better than us from this point of view.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a careful way of saying McLaren\u2019s setup didn\u2019t react as cleanly to the change in track conditions as Red Bull\u2019s did.<\/p>\n

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The Miami event brought rule tweaks including reduced recharge<\/a> in qualifying and a +150 kW boost cap,adding another layer of power unit management that not every team handles the same way.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is because of a combination of the upgrades and track characteristics, the four teams are very close and it\u2019s more about execution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stella, to his credit<\/a>, isn\u2019t looking for sympathy. \u201cFor F1, this is very good news<\/a> and we have some entertaining racing<\/a> ahead of us,\u201d he said, which is true, though it\u2019s easier to say when your car won the Sprint and your title leads are intact. On the rain forecast for Sunday\u2019s race, Stella is looking forward to what could be a very interesting race.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe conditions look like they will be wet at some stage, but it\u2019s thunder so it\u2019s difficult to say when and how. This would can create an eventful race. We just have to adapt to the conditions, be responsive and the usual basics of racing in unpredictable situations looking at the weather. We look forward to an exciting race.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Starting P2 and P4 with rain potentially in the mix isn\u2019t a disaster for McLaren as the race pace has been very strong all weekend. But if the Sprint race\u2019s lack of overtaking is going to be a factor during Sunday\u2019s race again, it could be very difficult for his drivers to move up the pack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McLaren arrived in Miami with what Andrea Stella had described pre-weekend as an \u201centirely new\u201d car: a substantial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111168,109676,111263,80149,63812,123,125,124,110622,111326],"class_list":["post-256388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-andrea-stella","tag-grand-prix-qualifying","tag-kimi-antonelli","tag-lando-norris","tag-mclaren","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-oscar-piastri","tag-sprint-race"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}