Stella outlines why McLaren fell short against Leclerc for pole in Hungary

McLaren dominated the three practice sessions at the Hungaroring, with Leclerc’s Ferrari close behind. It seemed clear that one of the two McLaren drivers would secure pole.

However, once Q3 arrived, McLaren just didn’t have the pace, and Leclerc seized the opportunity to take his first pole of the season.

The Monegasque was also flabbergasted by the result after the fact. How is it possible that, after such a strong weekend, the British team still misses out?

Team principal Andrea Stella has an explanation for that: ''I think it's an interesting qualifying session in terms of understanding how things go for a Formula 1 car,'' Stella told media, including GPblog, after the qualification.

According to the McLaren boss, the session was clearly influenced by the strongly changing conditions: ''You can see in the data a steep change in terms of wind direction, wind intensity, temperature, humidity, everything changed.''

He continued: ''Everyone from Q2 - up until when we were pretty competitive, we put together definitely strong laps.'' From that point on, McLaren was about half a second slower than earlier in the qualifying session, Stella stated.

Although McLaren had taken into account that conditions might change, the team couldn't prevent significant differences from arising: ''We simulated the change of conditions in our simulations and it gives a little bit less than that, but about four tenths of a second.''

While McLaren, with Norris and Piastri, lost time, Ferrari and Leclerc managed to drive even faster in the new conditions. "The track was definitely slower."

The team boss then explained that his drivers had noticed in their first runs that the grip was not at the expected level. "They knew that every corner would become a bit unpredictable, so the lap time wasn't going to come."

According to Stella, another factor was that the McLaren drivers could not afford to take too many risks: ''I think in the second set they needed to be a bit cautious because obviously when you race for the championship you want to make sure that you are there.''

And that's exactly what Ferrari and Leclerc were able to capitalize on Saturday afternoon: ''I think this is a slightly different approach for Charles. I think he just went for it like I don't think I have much to lose here, and it paid off, and this is a credit and merit to a very good execution by Ferrari and Charles.''