Last Updated on November 12 2025, 8:00 am
While the São Paulo Grand Prix may have appeared to be a McLaren masterclass, Andrea Stella, ever the realist, was quick to temper the celebrations with a dose of Red Bull-coloured reality. Despite Lando Norris’s dominant sprint and main race victories, Stella insists that Max Verstappen could very well have won the whole thing if qualifying hadn’t gone sideways, despite starting from the pit lane and clawing his way to third after a puncture.
“Without yesterday’s situation, Verstappen would have been in a position to win,” Stella admitted. Coming from the man who just masterminded a McLaren one-two, that’s quite the compliment. Or a warning, depending on how you read it.
The unstoppable pace of Red Bull
McLaren may have been celebrating, but Verstappen was flying under the radar — literally, given how quickly he was making his way through the field. After his first pit stop, the Red Bull driver was completing laps six-tenths of a second quicker than Norris — the F1 equivalent of running with jet boosters attached. By lap 21, he had made it back into the top five, and even as the race wore on, his pace remained hauntingly close.
In the later stages of the race, Verstappen’s RB21 was still two to three tenths of a second faster per lap than Norris’s McLaren, proving that Red Bull hadn’t lost its wings just yet.
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When Red Bull brought Verstappen in for a late pit stop to slap on fresh softs, Stella didn’t bat an eyelid. “Honestly, I was happy, it made our lives easier,” he admitted, quickly adding that it was still ‘the right decision’.
Tyre degradation in Brazil was severe, with rubber melting away faster than F1 fans’ patience during red flags. “At some point, the rubber just disappears,” said Stella, describing the situation as though the tyres had spontaneously decided to retire mid-race.
Red Bull’s decision was therefore more about survival than strategy. Stella acknowledged that the team had made the smart call: ‘The level of wear was very high. Continuing would have been a massive risk.” In other words, Verstappen’s late stop wasn’t a sign of desperation; it was damage limitation.
Engines, cost caps and corporate curiosity
The post-race paddock chatter also veered into nerdier territory: Red Bull’s engine change. Normally, the phrase ‘new engine’ would send rival engineers into a panic, but Stella was far from impressed.
‘These power units hardly show any performance degradation nowadays,” he said, downplaying the supposed advantage. According to him, a new engine brings about as much benefit as swapping batteries in your TV remote.
Then came the subtle jab: Stella hinted that if Red Bull (or rather Honda) changed the engine purely for performance reasons, perhaps the cost should count towards the budget cap.
“If the engine was changed for performance reasons, that should actually be factored into the cost cap,” he mused, clearly wondering whether Milton Keynes’ accountants had found a clever loophole.
“I don’t know if that’s how Honda handles it,” he added diplomatically, probably thinking, “But I’d love to find out.”
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McLaren’s golden weekend
Despite the Red Bull shadow hanging over the result, McLaren still walked away from São Paulo smiling. Lando Norris did what he does best: drive fast, joke faster and make it look easy. His double win capped a near-perfect weekend. Oscar Piastri also impressed, shaking off a sluggish first stint to finish strongly.
“Oscar was able to implement many of the things we talked about,” said Stella proudly, hinting at the kind of post-practice PowerPoint review that would make even Toto Wolff proud.
Piastri’s recovery, especially in low-grip conditions, provided McLaren with valuable data ahead of the high-stakes chaos of Las Vegas. Stella was cautiously optimistic, though he offered a grim reminder: “Last year, that was one of our toughest races. We had massive graining and aerodynamic efficiency issues.”
In short, Vegas might not be in their favour again this year.
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As for Norris, titles and ‘academic’ thinking
As for Norris’s growing title lead — 24 points and counting — Stella played the role of the cautious mathematician. ‘That’s all academic,” he shrugged.
“We’re taking it weekend by weekend.” He knows better than to jinx it: in F1, one dodgy safety car or rogue seagull can turn a championship on its head.
Nevertheless, if McLaren continue to perform as well as they did in Mexico and Brazil, it’s difficult to imagine anyone other than Norris emerging as Formula 1’s next homegrown hero. Stella summed it up neatly: “We were strong, but Red Bull was perhaps even stronger. That’s the level we measure ourselves against.”
It’s a nod to reality and a wink to ambition, and a reminder that even when you’re winning, Verstappen’s ghost is never far behind. The jury remains open for deliberation, as always.
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Ferrari are once again in a mess. The historic Italian Formula One team these days appears never far from a crisis. Questions were raised in the Italian media over the leadership of Fred Vasseur, only for Ferrari to answer within days by awarding him a new contract.
The signing of Lewis Hamilton was heralded in Maranello by some as the sign the team may be entering another Michael Schumacher era, where through his experience he wold lead the team back to winning ways.
Yet Schumacher was a much younger driver when he joined the Scuderia and it was a time when Jean Todt was leading a long term project of revolution, which meant Schumacher only found championship success in his fifth season with the team.
Hamilton’s highs and lows
Hamilton presents as somewhat of a bi-polar personality. His highs are monumental, but then so are his lows. Having missed out on a top ten shootout again in Hungary while his team mate claimed pole, a dejected Lewis Hamilton stated: “It’s just me every time.”
“I’m useless, absolutely useless. Team has no problem, you’ve seen the car’s on pole. They probably need to change driver,” Lewis said live on air.
Whether intentionally or not, Hamilton has channeled the spirit of Schumacher as he revealed on a number of occasions he has assembled dossiers to present to the engineers at Ferrari. These are presumably to assist them in overcoming the inherent problems in the SF-25, although one ex-Ferrari driver Arturo Merzario, claimed “90 percent of engineers didn’t want Hamilton” to join the team…READ MORE
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