Stella delivers encouraging McLaren verdict after Mercedes takes Canada advantage

Speaking to Sky Sports, Stella said, "It’s a fair margin considering they [Mercedes] had important upgrades here.” Mercedes also brought an upgrade package to Montréal after not bringing any to Miami. For McLaren, this is the second race weekend in which they have introduced upgrades, following their update package in Miami.

The two McLarens missed out on pole position to George Russell, with his teammate, Kimi Antonelli, in second. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri will start from the second row in third and fourth.

After sprint qualifying, Norris said, "It was a very good result, actually. A good surprise. After this morning, we were a little bit worried about how far off we were, with the lack of confidence in the car. We made some tweaks, and it seemed to make a good improvement.”

He added, “You are not getting a true representation of everything, and it is hard to back up what we are getting from the wind tunnel. We need a bit more time with some bits and will probably reintroduce them next week or in Barcelona. But the rest of the car was working well. It's a good step forward."

As Canada is hosting a sprint race weekend, the grid had limited practice time with only one session available. Unfortunately, that session was riddled with red flags, making it hard to get a good read on the new upgrades.

Piastri said, “[The car] felt pretty good. It was a bit of a messy day for everybody, but the Mercedes still looks pretty strong. That is the biggest takeaway, unfortunately.”

Like McLaren, Ferrari also introduced upgrades in Miami. However, they did not bring upgrades to Canada. As it stands, McLaren is only 16 points back from the Italian outfit in the Constructors’ championship fight. Ferrari has made strong starts this season but has struggled to maintain its pace, while Mercedes has won all four races.

Between the Miami and Canadian GPs, Ferrari team principal Frédéric Vasseur called the race-start changes ‘unfair’. Vasseur said he understood why the changes had to happen from a safety perspective. He noted that Ferrari designed its car with the start in mind, while other teams did not.

Mercedes has been one of the teams struggling off the line, with both drivers often losing positions at the start. With the two McLarens right behind the Mercedes, can Norris or Piastri turn this into a sprint win?