McLaren had the pace for double-points finish in Bahrain – Stella

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella says the Woking-based outfit could have been rewarded with a double-points finish in Bahrain without the issues that undermined its drivers' evening.

On paper, McLaren's opening race of 2023 was an utter failure, but from the team's perspective, its Bahrain Grand Prix offered reasons to feel encouraged.

Reliability issues on both sides of McLaren garage served to undermine the races of its drivers, with Oscar Piastri's F1 debut ending after just 13 laps due to an electronic problem that his crews could not solve.

As for Lando Norris, the Briton saw the checkered flag but two laps behind the leaders as a pneumatic pressure leak on the McLaren's engine required its driver to pit every ten laps.

"I think the best thing was the mechanics had a lot of pit-stop practice!" joked Norris at the end of the day.

But looking beyond the gremlins and inside the numbers, Stella singled out the positives, and particularly McLaren's race pace in Bahrain which he said was "almost beyond expectation".

• Read also: Norris' race botched by pneumatic pressure leak

"I think the most positive element is without issues Lando would have been a strong contender for points," said Stella.

"The pace of the car in the race was almost beyond expectation.

"I think in the race we see some reward of the work we did over the winter in trying to improve the interaction between the car and the tyres.

"This was certainly a strong position on Lando’s side, but also Oscar actually was having good degradation in the first stint: he overtook cars, it was a very tight race, so we could have been in the points with two cars – that’s the most positive outcome of this event."

At McLaren's presentation launch last month, Stella had warned that he was not all too happy with the level of development of the team's MCL60, and noted Baku next month as the first race where updates were scheduled to be introduced.

But after Bahrain, Stella suggested that McLaren's MCL60 is at a higher performance level than expected.

"Before coming [to Bahrain] I thought Q3 was difficult, and points would have been difficult, but they were up for grabs – let’s say it like this – more than I thought," he said.

"The other element we have to acknowledge is the midfield – not only the midfield – but the racing is close; without the [virtual] safety car I’m not sure there would have been people one lap down without issues.

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