McLaren team principal Andrea Stella says the positives of another podium at the United States Grand Prix are offset by mixed feelings about wanting to take the next step and finally win a race.
Lando Norris finished third in Austin before being promoted to second by Lewis Hamilton’s disqualification, extending his run of podiums to four in a row, with Oscar Piastri also finishing twice on the podium in that time. After the team led much of the first part of Sunday’s race, Stella admits being close to a win but not having the developments in the pipeline to make the final step is bittersweet, although he was pleasantly surprised by the car’s performance at Circuit of the Americas.
“To some extent we almost have mixed feelings,” Stella had. “We are celebrating a podium, but at the same time after the first stint it looked like we could have enough pace to finally grasp the victory.
“I would like to reaffirm that we are very happy with a podium and this is something that after the initial feeling of ‘Oh, shame, we didn’t win it’, everyone recognizes the proportion of adding a sequence of podiums in this season thinking about where we started from. But I also like this determination where we now look for the next step.