Stella: Talk of McLaren dominance ‘out of place’

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has moved to temper rising expectations around his team’s early 2025 Formula 1 form, despite a dominant showing on Friday in Bahrain and victories in two of the season’s opening three races.

While Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris swept to a commanding one-two in second practice under the lights at Sakhir, Stella insists any talk of McLaren emerging as the dominant force this season is “out of place.”

The Woking-based outfit started 2025 in blistering form, with back-to-back wins and a narrow loss to Red Bull in Japan.

But Stella remains level-headed, warning that the competitive margins remain fine and that the MCL39, while a strong contender, is not unbeatable.

'Dominance' Label Premature, Says Stella

“The MCL39 is certainly a competitive car. It’s faster than last year’s car, which was already fast and reliable,” Stella acknowledged, speaking in Friday’s FIA press conference in Bahrain.

“We needed to embrace some innovation and [have] courage to change pretty much the entire car. I cannot thank enough all the men and women at McLaren that delivered the performance we gave ourselves as an objective.”

Yet despite this encouraging progress, Stella was quick to downplay comparisons to dominant campaigns of the past.

“Having said that, I think the margins are very small. They keep being small. If we look at China in qualifying, it was a bit of a mixed bag. In Japan, in qualifying we got beaten, in the race we got beaten.

“So I think we have to be quite realistic as to the situation in terms of performance.”

Responding to growing murmurs from the paddock that McLaren might run away with this year's championship, Stella pushed back on that speculation

“I hear sometimes talk about dominance, which I think is out of place - sometimes it’s [put about] by our competitors.

“Clearly everyone knows the game, everyone knows how to put pressure or attempt to put pressure on the rivals.

“But we are very grounded people, in fairness, we are very calm. We’re not going to get into this kind of bait. We know that we have to work hard to exploit the potential of the MCL39, and we have to work hard to keep improving the car.”

Bahrain Not a “Comfort Zone” for McLaren

Despite topping FP2 by over half a second with Piastri, Stella does not believe Bahrain plays to McLaren’s strengths. The Italian pointed to the low-speed nature of the Sakhir circuit as a persistent weakness.

“My expectation is that Bahrain is the most difficult venue for McLaren of the first part of the season,” he said, echoing similar sentiments expressed by Norris earlier in the day.

While rivals have highlighted McLaren’s low tyre degradation during pre-season testing as a potential advantage under race conditions, Stella remained cautious.

“During the test, I’m not sure we saw that we were enjoying any advantage in terms of first lap [performance],” he said.

“The only thing we saw is that the car is gentle on the tyres, which is a feature we couldn’t exploit very much in Suzuka, which was a very low-degradation circuit.

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This one is a high-degradation circuit, so if anything, that could be our strength.

“But to capitalise on this strength, you have to qualify well. You [mustn’t] be stuck in traffic.

“There are a few things that we need to get right. And yet, in this kind of low-speed dominated configuration, I’m not sure that McLaren will enjoy much advantage at all.”

McLaren’s Friday pace may have raised eyebrows, but under Stella’s leadership, the team remains focused, cautious, and keenly aware that the battle for 2025 has only just begun.

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