{"id":141235,"date":"2025-05-29T11:09:08","date_gmt":"2025-05-29T11:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/141235\/"},"modified":"2025-05-29T11:09:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T11:09:08","slug":"mclaren-backs-ferrari-to-be-competitive-rival-at-f1-spanish-gp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/141235\/","title":{"rendered":"McLaren backs Ferrari to be competitive rival at F1 Spanish GP"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportweek.com\/tag\/mclaren\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">McLaren<\/a> Team Principal Andrea Stella expects <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportweek.com\/tag\/ferrari\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ferrari<\/a> to be a serious threat in Barcelona despite the Italian squad continuing to downplay its chances.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportweek.com\/tag\/leclerc\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Charles Leclerc<\/a> missed out on a second victory at his home Grand Prix, finishing in second place behind the McLaren of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportweek.com\/tag\/norris\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lando Norris<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Before the race weekend in Monaco, the Monegasque was adamant that the team would struggle around the streets of Monte Carlo.<\/p>\n<p>But heading into qualifying, Leclerc was denied pole by just over a tenth at a track that he believed didn\u2019t suit the SF-25\u2019s characteristics, particularly with the low-speed corners.<\/p>\n<p>Ahead of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportweek.com\/tag\/spanishgp\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Spanish Grand Prix<\/a>, the 27-year-old remains convinced the Scuderia cannot sustain its Monaco form.<\/p>\n<p>He argues that Ferrari could address its low-speed issues without compromising performance elsewhere because of the layout of the circuit, but said this advantage couldn\u2019t be repeated at other tracks, like Barcelona.<\/p>\n<p>Although Ferrari has understated its chances following Monaco, Stella believes they will deliver a strong performance in Spain.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m very interested, myself, to see where Ferrari will be in a circuit like Barcelona,\u201d he told media including <strong>Motorsport Week<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think we have ahead of us some circuits that will be like Silverstone, I think it will be more of the category of Saudi, Imola, for instance, and I expect Red Bull to be very strong there. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think some low-speed stuff like Canada, I would expect, hopefully, McLaren to be competitive.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBarcelona, I think, is a little bit in the middle, considering how fast Ferrari was in corner 3, 4 and corner 12, I think they can be fast in Barcelona as well. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, I\u2019m afraid we will have to see, and I have to study a bit better and come more prepared and create an anticipation of how we can classify corner circuits looking forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE \u2013<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportweek.com\/2025\/05\/29\/why-ferrari-is-unconvinced-it-can-sustain-monaco-form-in-spain\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Why Ferrari is unconvinced it can sustain Monaco form in Spain<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella expects Ferrari to be a serious threat in Barcelona despite the Italian squad&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[4199,997,707,4200,1710,61060,79,12853,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-141235","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-ferrari","10":"tag-formula-1","11":"tag-formula1","12":"tag-mclaren","13":"tag-spanishgp","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-stella","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114590814292348231","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}