McLaren Formula 1 boss Andrea Stella admits that improving starts is a priority for the team after another disappointing getaway from pole for Lando Norris in Zandvoort.
Despite the short run to Turn 1 Norris and team mate Oscar Piastri both dropped a place off the line, having had excessive wheelspin.
While Norris managed to pass Max Verstappen and win the race the bad start had a bigger impact on Piastri, who had to settle for fourth.
Stella acknowledged that starts remain a weakness for McLaren.
“The start is such a fundamental element to go racing,” he said when asked by formu1a.uno about the Zandvoort issues.
“It is as important as car performance, and we do have to look very carefully into the details about why our competitor seems to gain a little bit on us.
“I think statistically over the course of the season, we are competitive from a launch point of view, but we see that there’s some cars that Verstappen for instance, who seem to be performing very well at the start.
“And if you can capitalise a good qualifying performance with a good start, it makes your life so much easier. So definitely we have to look into this.
“And as I’ve already said, this comes from the driver in terms of their launch procedure, execution, and it comes from a team point of view, because there’s some aspects which are under the team’s control, and we need to look into what kind of optimisation we are able to do.”
Stella agreed that while Norris was able to recover the lead in Holland a bad start proved more expensive for Piastri.
“I think if with Oscar, we had not lost the position, I think it would be a different race, and Oscar had the pace to beat Max,” he said. “It’s a significant missed opportunity, I would say.
“At the same time, we approach this like any other opportunity you have, being it human performance, team performance or car performance, there’s just analysis, review, and then see what factors you have under your control that you have to you have to improve.”
At Zandvoort practice starts were only allowed from the grid after sessions, and not at the end of the pitlane, and wet weather created compromises. However, Stella didn’t blame that situation for the team’s issues.
“I’m not so sure, because obviously this would have been the same for all our competitors,” he said. “And it’s not that we are perfect anytime we have the end of pit lane starts allowed.
“I think there’s a wider theme around the performance of the launches and. And this is certainly a priority for the future McLaren.”
Norris suggested that the team had got something wrong on Sunday.
“We know what to do,” said the Dutch GP winner. “We know what’s required to do a perfect start. But we’re talking about fine margins here.
“Because we both didn’t get it right, it seems like maybe there was more underlying issue or something wasn’t how it was supposed to be, or we’ve clearly misjudged something more than what others did.
“Oscar’s one of the best starters on the grid. I’m not as good as him, but there or thereabouts. I’m not a bad starter, but not as good as obviously what we need to be.
“Again, it was a race which almost slipped away off the line, but today was, again, different to every other thing that’s happened.
“So, kind of like I said before the weekend, we need to find a bit more consistency, but we’ve worked on it, and I feel like I’ve done better procedurally, but obviously didn’t turn into the correct thing.”
