McLaren’s Andrea Stella: “We have some work to do from a performance point of view”

McLaren F1 Team’s Executive Racing Director Andrea Stella said that the team had a smooth day of practice at the Singapore Grand Prix, though there is still speed to be found ahead of qualifying. 

Lando Norris finished free practice one and free practice two in nineteenth and eleventh respectively, while Daniel Ricciardo took twelfth and eighteenth on the timesheets. 

“Singapore is a tough, demanding venue for a variety of reasons, and it’s good to be back here to pick up this challenge. The sessions this evening went according to plan, both drivers worked through their programmes with no major problems.” 

Norris received upgrades for Singapore, which were a focus of Friday practice for McLaren. Stella said that the team was able to gain valuable knowledge about these parts throughout the day’s sessions. 

“It’s been good to introduce the new parts on Lando’s side, we’ve collected a lot of data that will help us optimise this new package. A big thanks to the team back at the factory for enabling us to deliver this package this weekend.”

Though McLaren was struggling with pace on Friday, Stella said that the team has the feedback necessary to work towards a successful weekend in Singapore.

“We have some work to do from a performance point of view, and overnight we’ll be analysing all of the information we gathered on track today, to get us into as good a place as possible for qualifying tomorrow and Sunday’s Singapore Grand Prix.”