Andrea Stella insists mclaren can still target monza podium despite messy qualifying

That is not where a team fresh off winning the previous two races at the and wants to line up. will start sixth on the grid, and sits right behind him in eighth. But McLaren boss Andrea Stella refuses to throw in the towel for Sunday's grand prix.

Here is the thing: the MCL40 package has raw pace, even with its shortcomings. We saw it right there in Q2, where the cars finished second and third. Stella points out that at their best, the team had both machines right at the sharp end when positioning and slipstreams fell into place. Piastri even managed to stick his machine third on the timing sheets initially.

Unfortunately, execution let them down when it mattered most. Piastri copped a three-place grid penalty for impeding during Q2, a costly blunder on an out-lap. Norris also wrestled with brake issues, and when Q3 rolled around, things completely unravelled on the final runs. McLaren rolled the dice by heading out first from the pit lane to avoid getting caught in a queue, but that triggered a nightmare sequence of battery management failures—where every single percent of charge costs brutal milliseconds—compounded by Piastri locking up at corner one.

Stella calls it a half-pass on performance for the MCL40 exam, noting that clean execution should have put them right up on the first couple of rows. But he is taking a glass-half-full approach to Sunday.

"Cars are very close to one another, so it's difficult for me to make a prediction for tomorrow," Stella said on Saturday evening. "I think, in general, we should be able to compete for podiums, but we will have to be smart from a driving point of view, from an energy usage point of view, and from a strategic point of view."

The race itself promises to be an absolute tactical chess match. Slipstreams dictated qualifying, and managing boost, overtakes, and track position will create a wild dynamic on Sunday afternoon. As Stella noted, playing with the boost to pass someone might just leave you vulnerable and bleeding overall race time. But thankfully, some of Saturday's gremlins like track positioning and braking chaos won't play out the exact same way.