Stella revels in the conspiracy theories about flexwings and 'tyre water'

17:04, 16 May

byNorberto Mujica

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella is happy rivals are buysy pointing fingers at the Woking-based team, since this gives the papaya outift a chance to further increase their lead.

McLaren's - excellent - tyre preservation has been at the forefront of the talk in the F1 paddock with several speculations pointing to the papaya team allegedly cooling their tyres with water - illegally - and a supposed Red Bull investigation using thermal cameras suggesting McLaren's cooling benefits could not be achieved by way of airflow alone, etc.

Why is McLaren head and shoulders above the rest in F1?

"Let's say for us it's good news when our rivals get their focus rather than on themselves onto some of the aspects that allegedly are present in our car and that effectively they are not even present and that certainly even if they were in let's's say, flexi-wings, like a front wing deflection like everyone has, it has nothing to do with the reason why McLaren is very competitive."

"I hope that in the future there will be more of this kind of sagas, because it means that our rivals keep focusing on their own things. And this is for us just good news. It's just helping our quest."

Asked whether it will take a long time for the competition to catch up with McLaren, Stella also responded in his own way: "I would like to give the wrong answer here, so that I put all our rivals down the wrong route. The only thing I can say is that for me, over the others are doing, it's normally an alarm bell that should ring in your factory and should remind you to go back to the basics."

"So I'm afraid I've given the right answer, so I've helped now my competitors, but I'm intellectually honest, so I can't really give the wrong answer tactically," concluded Stella.