McLaren team boss Andrea Stella cast his vote for Formula 1’s current top three drivers, but Lewis Hamilton, the sport’s most successful driver in its history, is conspicuously absent from the Italian’s choice.
While F1 is often dominated by a handful of exceptional talents, identifying the absolute top drivers can be a contentious and subjective endeavor.
Stella’s omission of Hamilton among his top-three drivers will inevitably fan a few flames of discontent among the Briton’s supporters.
Hamilton’s track record in the sport is unparalleled, with an equal-best seven World Championships – on a par with Michael Schumacher – a record 103 race wins, and an equally impressive 104 pole positions.
Despite his recent struggles with Mercedes, Hamilton's ability to consistently deliver results, even in less competitive machinery, is a testament to his exceptional talent and driving prowess.
His resilience and adaptability have been key factors in his performance in the last two seasons, demonstrating his ability to overcome adversity.
But those considerations apparently did not carry much weight in Stella’s assessment.
“My top three drivers with the same cars would be Max Verstappen, Lando Norris and Fernando Alonso,” Stella told DAZN.
Stella may have felt tempted to include both of his drivers in his top-three best given his scintillating appraisal of Oscar Piastri whom, like Norris, he compares to Alonso, the “most complete” F1 driver on the grid and whom he worked with at Ferrari for several seasons.
“Oscar is talented and let me say intelligent,” said the McLaren F1 boss. “His brain capabilities are very high. He has very interesting characteristics. I would say that he is very calm.
“Lando is already one of the best drivers on the grid. He is very fast, very good in the race, with tyre management.
“When I think about Lando, I think that if the team and I gave him a good car, he would be able to fight for the championship.
“When we talk about being the most complete, I definitely think of Fernando Alonso.
“He basically has no weaknesses. I think this makes him unique. He is not the best in many things, but he is very strong in all of them.
“I think that in Oscar I see his powerful mind, he is definitely like Fernando. He can do mathematical calculations while driving.
“On the other hand, Lando, I think his development as a driver will make him so complete. He also reminds me a little of Fernando.”
Looking back on McLaren’s remarkable campaign, which saw the team turn around its fortunes at the start of the summer in the wake of a reshuffling of its tech department and the implementation of a development programme for its MCL60, Stella admitted feeling proud of what team papaya achieved.
“For us, for McLaren, it has been a positive season,” he said.
“Exhausting, we are feeling the fatigue, but at the same time we have pleasant feelings plus satisfaction for these results we are achieving. We are proud of what we have achieved.”
©McLaren
As for the future, Stella fears that there will be more to come from Red Bull and Max Verstappen in 2024, while his priority will be to keep McLaren in its upward trend
“I think Max Verstappen is completely out of place,” he acknowledged. “To think that he is there and that we can fight with Red Bull because they are very strong.
“Look at what they have achieved this year and I am sure that they still have a lot more to unfold. As if they could take another step. Better to stick to our own thing and maintain our internal journey. And see where we can be more competitive.
“I’d like to see Zak Brown [McLaren CEO] punching in the garage as much as possible. Because apparently when the results are good, he high-fives you really hard, so we’d like to see him punching in the garage, smiling, and being happy means that good things are happening.”
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