Stella admits McLaren has lost ground after upgrades
"We need to analyse our own development"
McLaren team boss Andrea Stella admits the team’s recent upgrades have failed to keep it at the front of Formula 1.
World champion Lando Norris had appeared to be mounting a resurgence with victories in Hungary and Zandvoort and strong pace in Madrid, but McLaren’s momentum has since faded.
The team introduced as many as seven updated components at Baku, only to struggle again at Sepang.
Ralf Schumacher suggested McLaren’s latest development package was a failure.
"The update is definitely a flop," he said.
"I hope they are open enough to reverse it, because this is a huge problem."
Stella acknowledged that McLaren is struggling to understand its sudden loss of competitiveness.
"We are seeing a scenario that seems to be changing quite rapidly," he said.
"In Hungary, we introduced some upgrades and were in a position to achieve pole position there and at Zandvoort. We were also in a position to achieve pole position and almost victory in Madrid."
"And then, very quickly, even though we also introduced upgrades, the landscape changed."
However, Stella is not convinced the new parts themselves are responsible.
"We need to analyse our own development," said the Italian.
"We don’t see any anomalies in our data, but we must recognise that some competitors have potentially developed their cars by taking bigger steps than we have."
He admitted McLaren had expected to perform much better in Malaysia.
"I’m not in a position to say whether Singapore will suit us better or not because we thought Malaysia would be a favourable circuit for us," Stella added.
"Singapore will give us a clearer answer."
Norris, meanwhile, revealed that a separate power unit problem had also compromised his performance at Sepang.
When asked if the problem could be resolved before Singapore, he replied: "I have no idea."
Stella confirmed that McLaren still intends to introduce further developments before the end of the season.
"More updates are coming for the final stretch of the season, so we hope to take another step forward and be back in a position to fight for the podium."