Stella on McLaren's alleged rule breach: 'simple matter escalated'

The FIA recently questioned a hole in the brake drums of McLaren's MCL38, following an alleged complaint from Red Bull Racing. Possibly, this would've allowed the Woking-based team to create an extra cooling duct. According to team boss Andrea Stella, there shouldn't have been such a fuss over the matter.

The hole is allowed during free practice on Friday to accommodate sensors, but from Saturday the holes must be plugged. McLaren allegedly failed to do this at some F1 races. As a result, the FIA has made it clear to the team that this is not allowed.

Stella does not understand why such a fuss is being made over the issue. "This matter is very simple, this is a hole to access a sensor and we got a clarification from the FIA that this hole is not allowed and we just taped it." The Italian told Sky Sports. "It's a very, very simple matter which for some reason seemed to have escalated to become a topic in the paddock, but nothing of that kind."

Asked if there have been any 'uncomfortable conversations' with the team following the team's loss of a victory in Silverstone, Stella replied that he does not think a tough approach is the right one. "That's not how you run a Formula One team. A Formula One team is not run by emotions.," he says firmly. "Otherwise it would collapse and implode pretty rapidly, no? Because Formula One is a roller coaster. And now the roller coaster has more and more goals in a season because it's 24 (races)."

He continues: "For us, Silverstone, obviously, there's some pain because we were in the lead, and somehow we saw that we couldn't capitalize, but we have a certain approach to missed opportunities. For us missed opportunities are a way to grow, a way to understand where are our gaps to be world champions let's say. That's where we focus. The focus is on the opportunity, on the growth, and on how we can improve." The McLaren man concluded.