Stella: Surprised the gap we had in Miami is as big

Stella's drivers were over half a minute clear of third-placed George Russell at the end of the grand prix in Miami last Sunday, one of McLaren's most dominant showings this season.

But the Italian persisted with the narrative that McLaren are not as dominant, revealing his surprise at their Miami form; he said: "I'm a little surprised that the gap we had today is as big as we saw.

"I thought that we could have had an advantage from a tyre management point of view, but I didn't think that the tyre management would lead to this level of gap throughout the race."

Red Bull's Max Verstappen claimed his tyres were overheating as soon as he started pushing, a factor he blamed for not being able to catch Russell in the Mercedes, who passed him for third after benefitting from a pit stop under a Virtual Safety Car.

And while Mercedes, for example, enjoy cooler conditions, McLaren have been the only team that have shown strong tyre management regardless of the conditions, let alone hot conditions.

Stella explained: "One of the matters that still in Formula 1 looks like it's a little bit of a black art, which is dealing with tyres.

"I would say especially when it's hot, there's another characteristic which I think works very well with our car, which is the cooling system.

"I think when it's hot our car, you can see that it is relatively closed from a bodywork point of view because there's been also great engineering going into the cooling system.

"So, I think in these conditions we see the excellence of the engineering at McLaren has reached a point where it can make a difference to this kind of extent," he concluded, hailing the work done behind the scenes at the McLaren Technology Center in Woking.