TEAM REPRESENTATIVES: Mario ISOLA (Pirelli), Andrea STELLA (McLaren), Alan PERMANE (Racing Bulls)

Q: Andrea, perhaps we could start with you if we may. It's turning into an incredible season for McLaren. Ten wins from 13 races so far. Now you've been involved in dominant seasons before in Formula 1, with Ferrari. What stands this one apart?
Andrea STELLA: Well, it's always difficult to compare across seasons. In this case, we are comparing across teams, and even myself, I was in a very different role, so my field of view, my perspective was very different. But if I had to pick a couple of features of the journey that is happening here at McLaren, I would say the rate of progress that we have had in a couple of years is in itself pretty unique, and possibly the rate of progress itself was even faster than what we experienced at Ferrari in the very competitive times. The second one is that there are no superstars. It's like a proper team journey, and this includes even the drivers. So, I would say these are the two main features that are peculiar of the journey that we are having at McLaren right now.

Q: And have you been surprised by your domination this year?
AS: Yes. I've been surprised by this level of competitiveness. When last year we discussed how much effort we wanted to put in improving the 2024 car, we definitely wanted to be very ambitious. We wanted to try and clear the “going into race weekends and you never know who's going to win” situation we had last year, and we thought we needed to do a little bit more than the normal development. So how do we do that? We embraced a very aggressive approach to innovation. The MCL39 is a very innovative car. From an engineering point of view, we've been nervous as to whether some solutions whether we were actually in the condition to deliver them. But then when we looked at the lap times and the numbers in simulations, actually, we thought that wouldn't be enough. At the start of the season, effectively it wasn’t enough. So, there's a factor that has happened during this season, which is the car has actually been upgraded. I think it was more noticeable in the past because we were coming with one-off upgrades, and they were in themselves very noticeable. But actually, even if we consider the last three, four races, there's been quite a lot of new parts that have been added. If we add all these in a single incidence, then we would say, “Oh, McLaren has a big upgrade.” So, I think this has helped a lot in creating this trend and finding that in the last three races, we were definitely very competitive.

Q: Talk about the drivers briefly. It looks like a two-horse race between Oscar and Lando. First of all, do you agree with that?
AS: Definitely not. I only agree with mathematics. So once mathematics tells us that's the case, then I'll change my answer.

Q: Well, between the two of them, there's very little separating them. What do you think it's going to come down to in the latter stages of this season?
AS: First of all, we need to make sure that we as a team only play a positive part, and the positive part is to give Lando and Oscar a fast car, a car that in all conditions can fight for the win. We don't play a role instead in which we have reliability factors, operational problems, pit stops that may bias the allocation of points one way or the other. This is the responsibility of the team. When it comes to Lando and Oscar, I think this is very much to do with the execution because they are very close, and it's a matter of details in the execution from all points of view: race craft, driving, penalties, and then consistency. Consistency—just being good at every single event—is something that Lando and Oscar have been very good at, but I think this is going to be more and more important, especially as the finish line gets closer and closer.

Q: Andrea, thank you very much for that. Mario, can we come to you now? Throw it back to Spa, first of all, and Pirelli's decision to skip dry compounds there. Did it work? What did you think?
Mario ISOLA: It’s difficult to come to a conclusion for Spa where we had the weather that was not helping at all. But I believe the idea was good, and that's why we decided to have the same approach for Texas and Mexico where we skip a compound between Hard and Medium. Basically, the target is always the same: to have a variation in strategies and to have teams planning a one-stop or two-stop, so different approaches to the race. We made some simulations, and we believe that creating a bigger gap between the Hard and the Medium means that if one team wants to use the Hard and target a one-stop race, they are penalised by a slower tyre, while if a team wants to be aggressive, but that means moving to a two-stop strategy, at that time you can use using the Medium and the Soft that are faster. So, this is the approach. For Mexico and Austin, we believe we can try this solution again.

Q: Can you elaborate on that, because you announced the compounds for the rest of the season this morning. Why did you choose Austin and Mexico specifically?
MI: Because of the simulation we were running with our modelling department that is telling us the two-stop strategy is slightly quicker than the one-stop. Usually, if you have a one-stop and two-stop that are very close in terms of total race time, the teams choose a one-stop. They don't want to take a risk of an additional pit stop, traffic or a mistake during the stop. So, they move in a natural way towards a one-stop race. That means in Mexico and Texas we have a simulation telling us the two-stop is a few seconds quicker. In some other races, we have also decided to change the allocation: we go softer in Baku, we go softer in Zandvoort without skipping one compound, just moving one step softer, while we decided to go one step harder in Brazil, because last year Brazil was with the C3, C4 and C5, and the C5 was not used during the race. The target is to have all three compounds suitable for the race, not just two out of three. With Brazil, we want to come back one step.

Q: Mario, thank you for that. Alan, thank you for waiting. Great to have you back in the FIA press conference. Good to see you. Can we start by talking about the car? It seems to be in a very good place at the moment. What are its standout qualities?
Alan PERMANE: Much has been made of it being an easy car to drive. A lot of people have spoken about that and they see how the drivers cope with it. But actually, what I think it is, is that it's an easy car for the engineers to get in the optimum window aerodynamically. We can do what we need to do with the setup and extract the most from it, which just gives us performance.

Q: And is there a corner type that it suits the best? Looking at FP1 this morning, you looked very well suited to me.
AP: Honestly, yeah. It worked well in Spa, it's worked well here, it's worked well at a range of tracks. Barcelona, it really was great. Austria was very good. No, it seems pretty happy anywhere.

Q: Let’s talk drivers. Liam Lawson’s drive in Spa you said was near perfect. Can you tell us about the journey he's been on with you since the third race and how he's managed to transform himself from a guy fighting for his career to delivering the kind of performance we saw last weekend?
AP: Yeah. He's done a great job, honestly. Two races at Red Bull, obviously, were very tough for him. He won't thank me for saying this, but he definitely was a bit downbeat. He didn't have a spring in his step, and we've done what we can to help him there. To jump in our car straight away without having tested it was, of course, not easy. He's up against Isack who has been outstanding this year. First race for him was Japan and Isack was absolutely flying there. So, it's a tough introduction for him, but we've made some changes. He's worked hard. Him and his engineering team have worked really, really hard. We had a bit of a breakthrough in Austria. We had a new front suspension for him, which they developed through the simulator, and he really liked it, was really enthusiastic about it, and it worked there. We saw last week in Spa again, he's performing. You could see after that race… Monaco was a decent race for him, but Austria, he had a spring back in his step.

Q: Very last one for me. You mentioned Isack being outstanding. He said yesterday he needs to celebrate his successes more. Do you agree with him?
AP: I would say he's a driver that when things aren't going well or when he's missing a bit to the other driver or the other car is a bit quicker, the first thing he does is look at himself. I think that's a strength. Sometimes if he's not performing, he may be a little bit unhappy, but he's focusing, he's working hard. He doesn't instantly point his fingers at the car or in Mario's direction. The first thing he does is ask, “What can I do better?” It won't hurt to be cheerful, and that lifts the team as well, but he's working hard.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Ian Parkes – RacingNews365.com) Question initially to yourself, Andrea, and if Alan or Mario want to chip in as well, please feel free. We've seen the growth of F1 has been exponential since Liberty Media came on board and since Stefano, in particular, took charge four and a half years ago. It's reinventing itself in different ways. It's attracted a new audience, an increased demographic, etc. Most recently there's been talk of increasing the number of Sprint races, making practice sessions more competitive and relevant. Does F1 need to keep reinventing itself in these ways to ensure it remains relevant and in the mainstream and to keep attracting those audiences?
AS: First of all, let me take the opportunity to praise the work done by Formula 1, by Stefano and the F1 management because they have certainly led the growth of the business, which we all benefit from. We all have a responsibility to sustain this journey that F1 as an overall business is going through. As part of this responsibility, we need to be open to reinventing ourselves if this is needed to sustain this growth. The success of the Formula 1 business at the moment should not be taken for granted. Not all sports are having this kind of success across the board. We understand also that the fandom has changed, and it could be that there's a need to review the way we approach free practice, the way we approach the entire race weekend. I think we have to be open to that. Obviously, we will try to be reasonable, we will try and protect some elements of the DNA of Formula 1, but definitely, I think it's part of our responsibility to contribute. This is something we discussed recently in the F1 Commission, and it’s always going to be at the top of the agenda.
AP: I think Andrea said it all. We need to give our customers what they want at the end of the day—the spectators, the people watching us. That’s where we go to first and, of course, we put our trust in Stefano and F1. They’re doing a tremendous job. With them and through the F1 Commission, we can shape the sport. I think Sprints are good fun. I'd be happy to do a few more, no problem.
MI: I fully agree with Andrea and Alan. Let me add that changing something when everything is going well is risky, and nobody wants to take any risk. But if we don't want to be late, we need to anticipate what could be the success of the future Formula 1, that is not granted, as Andrea said. We arrived at this point because Stefano and his organisation decided to do something that was at the beginning quite strange, unusual, and it worked well. So now we are saying Formula 1 is a fantastic platform for all of us, but we need to continue with this bid to create something new.

Q: (Nigel Chiu – Sky Sports) Question for Andrea. Andrea, do you think in the final 10 races after this summer break, if the Drivers' Championship remains close, are we naturally going to see more drama, more intense moments between Lando and Oscar if things go down to the final two or three races?
AS: I think there may be a natural increase of what could be a sense of pressure because the races reduce in number and every race will become, relatively, slightly more important. But from the point of view of the team principal and the team, our two drivers and the team have sustained this quest to the championships in a very solid way. Over time, reviewing this race by race, we have created a solid racing approach, an approach to which Lando and Oscar have definitely contributed. It's not like the team created this racing approach and now Lando and Oscar follow it—we have put it together as a team including drivers. So, I think this is a very robust framework, and this will be more and more important as the marginal value of every race increases as we get closer to the end of the season.

Q: (Thomas Maher – PlanetF1.com) Primarily for Andrea, but if Alan or Mario have any opinions on the matter. Team transfers regulations for 2026, I understand they were discussed recently at the F1 Commission. Given the example of Laurent Mekies jumping from Racing Bulls to Red Bull without serving any mandatory gardening leave period. Would you be in favour of the introduction of such periods, or are you ambivalent on the topic?
AS: This is an interesting topic and quite complex. We have to be wary that we don't approach it in too simplistic a way. Certainly, McLaren in the past have raised the question about team independence. It's a question that should be discussed as part of putting the sport in a very solid, fair position so that any team that operates in a fully independent way is protected against the benefits that can be exploited in being dependent as teams from one another. At the moment, we at McLaren trust that the regulations in place and the way they are enforced are already a valid way of mitigating any potential risk associated with connections between teams, like changing from one team to the other from one day to the next. But definitely, we think this is a topic that can be part of constructive conversations in the future to see if there's a way of approaching the matter of team independence in an evolved way compared to where we are at the moment.
AP: No, nothing to add.
MI: Nothing to add.

Q: (Carlo Platella – FormulaPassion.it) Andrea, you mentioned the development rate of the car, and in the last few years, at least from the outside, it seems you are the only team that whenever you brought something on the track there weren’t any side effects on drivability. How would you explain that?
AS: This trend that we have been able to establish, whereby developments—being them from a mechanical point of view, but above all aerodynamic—have been successful, is the result of many factors. There's not much in Formula 1 fundamental for success that is a magic bullet. It's really the result of working on the fundamentals. The fundamentals don't only involve the capacity to generate ideas, to create the next geometry for a floor or a front wing, but they also involve understanding the methodologies you use for this development and understanding when these methodologies will be not only effective in being innovative but also in giving you the confidence that what you have achieved in development in the wind tunnel or CFD will actually transfer into something that works trackside. This is part of generating the knowhow as a team, which in itself is a very simple statement—“let's generate the knowhow to have the best correlation”—but in reality, is possibly one of the most complicated battlegrounds for any Formula 1 team. We have invested a lot from this point of view. I have to praise the quality of the people because even if we talk methodologies, they are always led by people. I have been very lucky that I could lean on very competent leaders and a very talented team.

Q: (Luke Smith – The Athletic) Andrea, to follow-up on Nigel's question earlier about the relationship between the two drivers, when you look at events such as here last year and through this season so far, how much heart and confidence have you taken from the way that Lando and Oscar have kept this good relationship despite the intensity of the title fight and stress testing it before we get to an even higher pressure point if it goes to the end of the season?
AS: If anything, the relationship between Oscar and Lando keeps improving. This is not the effect of a random evolution. This is because we invest in relationships. When I refer to fundamentals of Formula One, relationships are probably slightly less tangible, but I think they are as fundamental as aerodynamics. This involves the relationship between drivers and the team and between the drivers themselves. If I take the race we had last year in Hungary, we spent quite a lot of time reviewing that individually with the drivers and together. We tried to learn from each other as much as possible. We reminded ourselves that Formula 1 is difficult, and we are always going to face some difficulties. This is an awareness we need to have. From there, what can we do to improve? What can we do as a team to make sure we have a framework that allows Lando and Oscar to pursue their aspirations, always protecting the interests of the team. Once again, I'm a lucky team principal because the two drivers are very reasonable, very fair, very correct, humble, and above all, they understand that we are here not only to pursue our interest in the present but also to protect the future of their own careers and of McLaren Racing.

Q: (Josh Suttill – The Race) Andrea, yesterday Max Verstappen said that the performance of your car in medium-speed corners was incredible. In your view, how much is that playing into McLaren's advantage this season?
AS: That's an easy answer because it can be answered just by looking at the GPS data. When you look at the speed comparison with some other teams, the data says that McLaren can generate the highest mid-corner speed in medium-speed corners. So, I think the assessment of Max is correct.
We still have our weak points. If you go on a very high-speed corner like Copse, for instance, or Pouhon, we are not the fastest car. Likewise, probably in very low speed, we are not the fastest car. But the majority of corners in a championship happen to be medium-speed corners, and certainly in that range, our car is, data in hand, the best.

Q: (Giuseppe Marino – MotoriOnline.it) Mario, ciao. How far along is the 2026 tyre test, and how difficult is testing these tyres with the newer cars?
MI: It's difficult, but it's similar to the situation we had years ago in 2021 and 2016 when there was a big change in the regulations. The test is going well. We are lucky that we can test with all the teams because they have different mule cars, so we can collect more information. We work a lot on the virtual model of the tire as well together with the teams. I'm confident that we will have a good product. Now the construction is almost finalised. We are working on the compounds. We have two days of testing after this race, and then we stop a little bit for the summer break.

Q: (Peter Farkas – Auto Moto) Gentlemen, you have all been coming to the Hungaroring for quite a few years now. This year, the track, the pit building and the grandstand have been reconstructed. How do you rate the reconstruction? It's not yet completely ready. Does it make a difference from an operational point of view? You have bigger garages and things like that.
AP: It's impressive. I came here first time in 1990, two iterations of paddock ago. It was a very, very different place and obviously a very different city as well. Now it's state of the art. It's super impressive. It allows us to just get on and do our job, do our racing and our preparation without any limitations that I can think of. It's great.
AS: I was actually ready to say more than impressive because I think ‘impressive’ is not enough. It definitely makes the life of the teams easier. It's much more welcoming. It must have been a big investment, and I want to take the opportunity to thank the organisers of the Grand Prix and the management of the Hungaroring infrastructure because this must have been a big effort, but definitely very well received. On behalf of all teams and stakeholders, we are very grateful these upgrades have happened.
MI: I'll just echo what they said. It's really important to have the right space to work. Sometimes with our fitting area, we don't have enough space, and it makes everything more difficult with rims and tires moving around in a small space. The infrastructure is amazing. Everything is really well done.

Q: (Phil Duncan – PA) Question for you, Andrea. Just going back to the drivers, obviously Lando started the season as the favourite. In terms of experience, he's got more races under his belt than Oscar. Do you think he's under more pressure to win the championship this year than Oscar is? And do you think perhaps he might be feeling that at all?
AS: As you say, Lando may have a bit more experience in terms of number of races. He started the season in Australia with a strong result, but ultimately, in Australia, Oscar was there with Lando. Oscar lost points in Australia just because we had the sudden rain in the final part of the circuit.
I think one of Oscar's qualities is to learn very fast, very rapidly. He has demonstrated it in his career, winning pretty much first year in all the junior categories. He has demonstrated it at McLaren. Now we have Lando and Oscar driving and operating at very, very similar levels. This season, what we have to acknowledge as a team is that we have made some modifications to the launch version of the car that actually affected Lando's driving style. We made some upgrades which mean that right now some of the settings used by Lando and Oscar are slightly different, but we are pleased that now both drivers can drive to a certain extent in a natural way. They can express their talent, and we see that they are very, very close. This makes it a great spectacle for Formula 1, this is what we wanted to achieve as a team, and I think it's going to be very interesting until the end of the season. But like we said in some of the previous questions, I wouldn't exclude Max, for instance, being in the game. So, we are very wary. We remain concentrated, but we want to put our drivers in a position to sustain their quest until the end of the season.