Stella adds insult to injury: McLaren's superlative advantage, Red Bull's profound weakness

Max Verstappen struggled to keep his RB21 on track during the British Grand Prix. The Dutchman often went off track and even spun, ultimately finishing in fifth place.

According to the Austrian team, there was an overreliance on dry weather conditions, and the car was setup accordingly. Verstappen did excel in qualifying, grabbing pole position, but the story was quite different in the race.

Andrea Stella, McLaren's team principal, told GPblog among others after the Grand Prix, "When we made our rear wing choice, we didn't really think very much about the weather in the race. We tried to select the wing that we thought was the fastest in the interest of qualifying and in the interest of the race."

The Italian admitted that McLaren's setup approach was also aimed for dry conditions. However, the British team performed much better on the wet tarmac than rival Red Bull. "Because in fairness here in Silverstone, unless you go far too low with the rear wing, you still need the speed in the straight even in wet."

Stella suggested that Red Bull's choice also involved other issues. "I think for Red Bull, also based on some of the comments they made, the decision to go for a skinny rear wing might have been also for the possibility to be able to balance the rear wing with the front one."

Stella insists that there's more to the RB21's issues than just the rear wing. "This is in Red Bull territory, it's their choice. I still don't necessarily think that the rear wing is the only reason why you perform better or worse in wet conditions. This is also to do with the way you use the tyres, with the way you retain the temperatures in the tyres."

The team principal pointed to his own team as an example. "If you see our pace at some stage it was more than one second faster and certainly this is not because of the rear wing. This is more to do with the way you use your tyres," said Stella.