After a strong end to the 2024 season, it’s little surprise that the Australian Grand Prix has kicked off with a McLaren 1-2 in qualifying.

But team principal Andrea Stella has cautioned that expecting the same performance on race day may very well be “over-optimistic” from what he’s seen so far.

Andrea Stella cautions “over-optimistic” expectations for McLaren after Australian GP qualifying

McLaren were the clear favorites heading into the 2025 Formula 1 season after the papaya team found impressive pace through a series of mid-season upgrades in 2024.

Bahrain testing proved that there was indeed speed to be found, and a strong 1-2 qualifying in Australia with Lando Norris on pole and Oscar Piastri lining up beside him seems to prove those predictions correct.

Nevertheless, McLaren team boss Andrea Stella has warned that making any sweeping assumptions about race pace based on their qualifying performance would be “over optimistic.”

As Stella noted during a round-table media session after qualifying, the gaps between teams may be a little misleading.

“I am certainly surprised of the gap between McLaren and Ferrari, but I would say more I just don’t take that gap at face value,” he said.

“I’m sure the potential of the red car is higher than, for some reasons, was possible to exploit today.

“I think we have seen that until possibly qualifying in every session, even in Bahrain.”

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Stella says that the McLaren outfit is being “very realistic” about the fact that Ferrari is lined up to present a strong challenge when it comes to race pace — even if the Grand Prix happens to take place in the rain.

“This is also true for Red Bull and for Mercedes, because ultimately, like I said before, Lando and Oscar put together two strong laps in Q3 and I could see how much they could benefit from the qualities that they bring to McLaren and to one another,” Stella explained.

“And I think this may create a slightly over-optimistic picture in terms of the competitiveness of the team, so feet on the ground, and there’s a lot that we can improve and we should improve for the future.”

Earlier in the media session, Stella pointed out that both Norris and Piastri had spent the off-season better understanding how to work together, and that the expectation of the team is that the two will work as a team to amass as many early points as possible.

He noted that during Free Practice 1, he consulted telemetry to see “the points where Lando and Oscar were fast were quite complimentary — like Lando was fast in some corners, and Oscar was fast in some other corners.”

However, the two “were learning from each other” throughout practice.

“I think the result we have today, with the first row locked in by McLaren, is certainly because the car seems to be performing well, but I can see the lap time that came from the drivers learning from each other.”

How that teamwork will play out in the long run remains to be seen, but so far, it sounds as if McLaren is benefitting from two teammates who are equally committed to putting the performance of the team first.

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