McLaren boss lashes out at Red Bull for inventing narratives

McLaren boss Andrea Stella has lashed out at rivals Red Bull for inventing media narratives. This comes in the backdrop of Max Verstappen once again getting the better of the duo of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri and securing pole position at Miami GP. The qualifying session was once again very close, and like always, it came down to the last lap.

While Max Verstappen was able to nail himself after a slight stumble in the first sector, Lando Norris was less than a tenth behind in P2. Oscar Piastri had a worse run as he was only in P4. Among all of this, Red Bull has lauded the effort made by the team, and the situation didn't look this favorable early in the weekend, so much so that any triumph over McLaren has been considered an underdog win.

Team principal Andrea Stella was seemingly unimpressed by this suggestion and lashed out at the Austrian rival for inventing narratives when it comes to car performances and the gaps between rivals. Talking about Red Bull, the McLaren boss told Motorsport,

“Red Bull, they are very good at making fast cars, they are very exceptionally good, I would say, at driving fast cars, and they are extremely good also at creating the narrative to their advantage. They exploit every possible opportunity to stay in the competition, and some of these opportunities sometimes is to create the narrative like: 'oh we are making miracles here, the others should win every single practice session and qualifying and race'.

He added,

“But this is the narrative created by some of our competitors which we read occasionally and then we change the page, and we focus on ourselves and when we focus on ourselves we look at the numbers, we look at the facts, we look at what we should be improving and there's a lot that we should be improving. So for me when I look at the facts. I also look at what Lando and Oscar deliver and deliver quite consistently, so yeah, well done to Red Bull even in terms of the way they manage their non-technical opportunities.”

With Max Verstappen now securing pole position in Miami, the Dutch driver has 3 poles this season, the same number that McLaren has picked up as well.

Lando Norris on where Red Bull is compared to McLaren

During the race weekend, Lando Norris was questioned on where he feels Red Bull is in terms of performance compared to McLaren, to which the Brit felt that it was hard to take a call. The driver felt that since there is only one competitive driver in the team, you don't have a benchmark in the other car to measure up with. He said,

“It is impossible to know what car he's got compared to us. The advantage we have is two quick drivers and they don't. We have a car that's capable of allowing drivers to drive quicker but impossible to know, impossible to actually know the difference between the two cars.”

The season is only going to get interesting as tensions rise in the championship fight. Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, and Max Verstappen are potentially going to be involved in a 3-way battle for the title.