McLaren looks 'to explore F1 possibilities' with youngster after Barcelona outing

Fornaroli was among the seven rookie drivers taking part in FP1 this weekend at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix. Last year's Formula 2 champion was also praised by McLaren team boss Stella, who said that they should explore possibilities with the youngster in F1, instead of looking at other options. McLaren also currently has a team in IndyCar and will do so in the Hypercar category of the WEC starting in 2027 for example.

"Leonardo is certainly an asset for Formula 1 in the future. Leonardo, we want him to drive, certainly. In the future, he may drive for McLaren Racing, but I think we should work together with Leonardo to explore possibilities in Formula 1," Stella told GPblog, among others, in Barcelona.

Stella also gave a detailed evaluation of the F2 champion's performance during the first 60 minutes of the Grand Prix weekend. "It was a very deserved opportunity. We have worked with Leonardo for some months now. We have appreciated massively his attitude as a person and as a driver. He's actually a very interesting character," he began.

"We gave Leonardo some duties in the first part of his FP1 session, because he needed to do some work for us on the rakes. It's actually the rakes to try and understand the behavior of the front wing. It was difficult because he needed to go in constant speed while everyone else was at normal speed and he did it with a great level of professionality and great level of precision in terms of these procedures, because there's a lot of work on the steering wheel to achieve the right speed and stay away from traffic," he praised Fornaroli.

"Then when we gave him a couple of sets, one used, one new, he was fast. And I have to say that in the lap time he did, you should take away two tenths of a second because he loses two tenths of a second down the straight because with this power unit, you need to get some familiarity and as soon as you have to manage some traffic, the state of charge of the battery is not maximum and you're going to be punished down the straight. So, very happy with the altitude, the speed, the consistency," Stella concluded.