McLaren chief Andrea Stella has heaped rare praise on his engineering team following a commanding one-two finish at the 2025 Miami Grand Prix.
In scorching conditions, the team stunned rivals with an astonishing display of race pace, as Oscar Piastri led home teammate Lando Norris to secure victory.
The McLaren MCL39 may not be unbeatable over a single qualifying lap, but its race-day prowess is currently unrivalled.
The duo finished a remarkable 30 seconds ahead of the rest of the field, underlining the car’s ability to manage tyre degradation better than any other on the grid.
Stella, usually measured in his post-race reflections, spoke with clear admiration for the work done behind the scenes.
“I think we have seen before, we have talked about this a few times now, that whenever the conditions are challenging for the tyres in terms of overheating in particular, then the car seems to be doing a good job on keeping the tyres in a very good window and the car is gentle on the tyres,” said Stella.
“There’s very good engineering behind this, we have looked holistically at all the characteristics that you can have in a car that influence the behaviour of the tyres and I just want to take the opportunity to praise the work that has been done by the engineers at McLaren in terms of identifying these factors, designing these factors in a way that is practical to actually cash in this kind of benefit and then master one of the matters that still in F1 looks like it’s a little bit of a black art, which is dealing with tyres.”
While rivals may still challenge McLaren in qualifying, Sunday’s evidence suggests that in terms of sustained race performance, the MCL39 currently stands alone.
