McLaren chief Andrea Stella has called their rivals “defocused” after the FIA cleared the team’s car of illegally using liquid to cool its tyres ahead of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
A dominant start to 2025, which has seen McLaren win five of the opening six rounds, had seemingly led to suspicions among some rivals teams about how the MCL39 was keeping its tyres in an ideal operating window during races to help tyre wear.
McLaren Racing chief executive Zak Brown even brought a bottle with ‘tire water’ written on it to the pit wall in Miami, making light of rivals’ suspicions.
The FIA revealed ahead of this weekend’s race in Imola that Drivers’ Championship leader Oscar Piastri’s car had randomly been chosen for “extensive physical inspections” including checks to the wheel bodywork and for liquid cooling of brakes, which is forbidden.
All the inspected components were “found to be in conformance” of the technical regulations.
“It’s a bit of a shame for the workload it creates for the FIA but this is a matter for the FIA to resolve,” Stella told Sky Sports F1.
“Probably the FIA should create a higher threshold for allegations to be brought on board because this creates a lot of work for them and leads nowhere.
“But I welcome other teams are defocused.”
Flexi-wing debacle set to come to an end in Spain
Another area of controversy aimed at McLaren by rivals over the past 12 months surrounds flexi-wings.
After the so-called ‘mini-DRS’ controversy of last season around the level of bodywork flexing being seen on some teams’ rear wings when running at speed on track, the FIA announced ahead of the 2025 campaign that new load tests for wings would be introduced. Flexible bodywork is outlawed in F1.
New deflection limits for rear wings were brought in at the season-opener in Melbourne, and then tightened again from the season’s second round in China, but the new tests in Barcelona will focus on front-wing flexing.
Footage at various races this year has shown wings on several cars moving on the straights, which may aid with straight line speed, before reverting to a stationary position for the corners, so the car still gets the benefit of having maximum downforce.
McLaren’s bosses have previously said the new tests for Barcelona will not impact them and Stella says “even if there was a front wing deflection, it has nothing to do with the reason why McLaren is very competitive”.
“As McLaren and for me as a team principal, when I see this level of attention from our rivals, for me this is good news and I hope in the future we have even more,” he added.
“This is telling me our rivals are focused outside themselves and not focusing on the fundamentals which is exactly of what we try to do at McLaren, where we focus on ourselves and the fundamentals from an engineering point of view, which is where we generate the performance to be very competitive.
“If that’s the approach they decide to have, for us it keeps being good news.”
Sky Sports F1’s Emilia Romagna GP Schedule
Saturday May 17
9am: F3 Sprint
11:15am: Emilia Romagna GP Practice Three (session starts at 11.30am)
1.10pm: F2 Sprint
2.10pm: Emilia Romagna GP Qualifying build-up
3pm: EMILIA ROMAGNA GP QUALIFYING*
5pm: Ted’s Qualifying Notebook
Sunday May 18
7.25am: F3 Feature Race
8.55am: F2 Feature Race
12:30pm: Grand Prix Sunday: Emilia Romagna GP build-up
2pm: The EMILIA ROMAGNA GRAND PRIX
4pm: Chequered Flag: Emilia Romagna GP reaction
5pm: Ted’s Notebook
*Also live on Sky Sports Main Event
F1’s European season begins with the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix this weekend, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime
