McLaren boss Andrea Stella has said F1 2024 proves that the sport is currently in a ‘Max Verstappen era’ as he praised the new world champion.

The Las Vegas Grand Prix put an end to McLaren’s hopes of winning the drivers’ title with Lando Norris, as Max Verstappen wrapped up his fourth consecutive world championship.

Andrea Stella congratulates Max Verstappen on title win

Verstappen’s fifth-place finish in Las Vegas, ahead of Lando Norris, meant his points lead over the McLaren driver is 63 points – an insurmountable gap with two race weekends remaining.

It brought to an end a season-long battle between Norris and Verstappen for the title, with the Red Bull driver weathering a mid-season onslaught from Norris to open back up the gap in the last two race weekends.

It hasn’t always been a completely amicable title fight between Red Bull and McLaren, with off-track technical accusations being leveled at each other, while on-track battles between Verstappen and Norris also resulted in some fractious moments.

But, with the title decided in Verstappen’s favour, McLaren team boss Andrea Stella made a point of congratulating his team’s rival as he spoke to media, including PlanetF1.com, after the chequered flag in Las Vegas.

“Let me express my congratulations to Max Verstappen for four world championships in a row,” he said.

“I think this title confirms that Max is one of the best drivers in the history of Formula 1 and it’s almost an important one for him because, possibly in the past like last year, people might have thought that it’s easy to win races when you have the best car, but it’s never easy to win so consistently.

“There are always so many reasons why things can go wrong, and I think, already last year, they were operating – driver and team – at a very high level.”

With Red Bull’s RB20 falling off the boil after a dominant start, due to correlation issues taking the Milton Keynes-based squad down the wrong development path, Stella said Verstappen’s ability to maximise his results underlined a particularly impressive season.

“This year, when often he didn’t have the best car, but what he could extract from weekends in which he didn’t have the best material confirms that we are in the era of Max Verstappen in these last few years and he deserves what he is achieving,” he said.

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Norris gave as good as he got against Verstappen, coming out on top with dominant drives at the Dutch and Singapore Grands Prix to add to his debut win in Miami, but never quite got the momentum on his side to put Verstappen under serious pressure in the points standings.

The McLaren surge began in Miami, following the rollout of a comprehensive upgrade package for the MCL38, and Stella said it was clear that, from that moment on, Norris was capable of battling with the reigning Champion.

“If we remove the first few races of the season before we deliver the Miami upgrades, then we see that we have a trajectory from a Drivers’ Championship point of view that means that Lando could compete with Max,” he said.

“This is one of the unthinkable achievements that we have to positively acknowledge at McLaren and, when I say unthinkable, unthinkable thinking of where we were only 18 months ago.

“At the same time, while being part of this quest, I think we have learned many things. We have learned as a team. We have learned how to win races. We have also learned that, sometimes, competing to win races, you need to adjust the way you approach racing.

“Definitely this season, we have had some situations like Canada and Silverstone in which we could have won the race, or Monza, and we got important learning as a team.

“If we look at Lando’s adaptations of competing, even wheel to wheel with Max, I think, from where he was in Austria to where he was in Austin, and just the week after in Mexico, he learned so quickly.

“I’m very proud of how rapidly Lando is picking up from the situations that he experiences on track and, to some extent, even off track, to become a better and better driver.

“I’m not sure this is acknowledged enough externally, for some reason, the more acknowledgment towards what are the missed opportunities, rather than recognising that Lando is on an extremely strong trajectory, and he was in condition once McLaren offered material that can win races to keep the pace of Verstappen.”

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