Today's press conference with James Vowles, Jonathan Wheatley and Andrea Stella.

Q: James, why don't we start with you. A quick word on the job you think Luke Browning did in FP1? There was a close call between both of your drivers at one point.
James Vowles: Yeah, I mean, that's not on Luke, that's on us. Luke did a brilliant job. I'm not sure how much you followed it, but fundamentally he was doing a lot of aerodynamic work for us. It's an opportunity to come back to where we were testing before, or with a car that's slightly different, and just make sure we understand what's changed, how it's adapted. In that case, Luke was doing a number of in/out runs and we only gave him one timed lap on the Soft. For his only lap, I don't think it's a bad effort putting him P13 on the timesheet. So, really, really happy with the work he did.

Q: Let's bring it onto the bigger picture now. You've already exceeded your points tally from 2024 - 19 this year, 17 last year. When you look at the performance of the car, is that what you've been expecting?
JV: It's always hard to adjudicate a level of performance because it's relative. Just putting some numbers to that - I think 60 milliseconds separated five cars in Q3 last week. The midfield is incredibly tight. So Q1 does not feel comfortable. You're scraping through by about a tenth and a half, and it may not even feel comfortable McLaren - it's just awfully tight now. To score those points - I mean, when you say those words, honestly, what it really does to me is, I regret last year. It was just a very poor year for us, as how I see it. But I think more importantly, it's a demonstration that we're on a good pathway to improving the car year-on-year. What's really going to shake out is how all that midfield develops against one another across the next 10 races or so.

Q: You talk about improving the car. Are we seeing an improved Alex Albon this year? He's scored the majority of points for you, and he's got through to Q3 at every race so far. Is he a better driver this year than last?
JV: Yeah, I think undoubtedly. I remember the day I joined - I've known him since 2016 - but the day I joined, I think he'd been through a lot, is probably the polite way of putting it. You saw a step from him every single year, and this year he's really not putting a foot wrong. I can't fault anything that he's doing. It's absolutely on the money in terms of delivering. He knew he had to step up with Carlos in the car, and he has.

Q: A word on Carlos. He spoke about the difficulties of changing teams and power units. What kind of a job do you feel he's done so far this year?
JV: I've said it already - there are two ways to assess performance for a driver. The first is what they're doing in the car, and it will take him time. Our car has a very different style of adapting to it than the Ferrari. He's getting there. I think Japan already was a large step in performance. As I said to everyone else - the last person to win a race is him, and he knows how to do this. He'll be on the money very shortly. In terms of what he's doing, even out of the car - the car is faster thanks to the work and effort, the work ethic he's put in, and how he really develops with the engineers. That's why Carlos was my number one target. It's because he's absolutely brilliant at developing teams, and he's already bringing that to the table. And then above that, as you saw, he's a part-time strategist - but quite good in that regard. Part of the reason why we have the points score is thanks to his help supporting Alex.

Q: Have his difficulties been exaggerated by the closeness of the field?
JV: I don't think so. I use relative gaps, as does he. Yes, the difference now is when you're a tenth off, there's four cars that shuffle in between the two. But it's a relative numbers game. Between him and Alex, I don't think there'll be a millisecond to spare when both are on song. That's what he's reviewing. That's what I'm reviewing as well.

Q: Thank you for that, James. I'm sure there'll be more questions. Talking of changing teams, Jonathan, welcome to the FIA press conference. New team, new role for you this year as well. How are you settling into those two arenas?
Jonathan Wheatley: Well, actually I was just saying to the guys before we came in here, it's exciting. I'm re-energised. There's an energy in the company in this transition from Sauber to the Audi Formula 1 project. I feel like I'm in absolutely the right place, to be honest. My family and I, we've moved to Switzerland - an amazing country, which I had kind of driven through but never stayed in. Honestly, we're making a home for ourselves, and I feel very, very at home at Sauber.

Q: You've spent many years observing team principals. How are you approaching the role yourself?
JW: For those that don't know, I started in Formula 1 as a mechanic back in 1991 and forged my own path. I had a decision to make - whether I went down the technical route and became more of a chief engineer-type role, or whether I would go into management. I'm a people person, and it's the people that excited me. It's the working in a team and creating a team that excites me. I've developed my own techniques for that. Everyone that holds a team principal position seems to do it in a slightly different way, but I think everyone at my level understands what a team involves.

Q: What are your first impressions of Sauber?
JW: Honestly, really positive. There's a great energy in the team. There's an excitement about the project moving forward. Some of these guys will know what it's like to be in a smaller team that's getting bigger. The people there, they look you in the eye. There's an energy which I'm feeding off. It feels like a really great time to be there.

Q: And you come from World Championship winners Red Bull. What are the biggest differences between what you experienced there and what you're seeing now at Sauber in Hinwil?
JW: I'm about two weeks into the job. I'm trying to use my eyes, ears, and mouth in proportion - which is unusual for me - and I'm just taking on as much information as I can at the moment. I have a plan, and I need to keep referring to that and remember what my views were when I came in. But largely, as I sit here today, I'm just encouraged by the energy and excitement in the organisation.

Q: Have you given the team a goal for the season?
JW: I'm working towards setting my goals and mid-term plan, then looking at long-term planning after that. As I say - two weeks into the job - I've spent nearly as much time in the air as I have in the factory, so I'm still listening and learning at the moment.

Q: Thank you for that. Andrea, thank you for waiting. Been a very strong start to the season for McLaren. You're leading both World Championships. How do you view your advantage over the rest of the field at the moment?
Andrea Stella: The MCL39 is certainly a competitive car. It's faster than last year's car, which was already fast and reliable. We needed to embrace some innovation and courage to change pretty much the entire car. I cannot thank enough all the men and women at McLaren that delivered the performance we gave ourselves as an objective. Having said that, I think the margins are very small. They keep being small. If we look at China in qualifying, it was a bit of a mixed bag. Japan - in qualifying we got beaten, in the race we got beaten. So I think we have to be quite realistic as to the situation in terms of performance. I hear sometimes talk about dominance, which I think is out of place - sometimes it's pronounced by our competitors. Clearly everyone knows the game, everyone knows how to put pressure or attempt to put pressure on the rivals. But we are very grounded people. In fairness, we are very calm. We're not going to get into this kind of bait. We know that we have to work hard to exploit the potential of the MCL39, and we have to work hard to keep improving the car.

Q: But was Suzuka a wake-up call for the team, or was it a specific set of circumstances that resulted in Max Verstappen getting the win?
AS: Yeah. But you know, Tom, in line with what I've just said, we didn't need any wake-up call because we were not sleeping, and certainly we were not dreaming. We were wide awake, knowing that if we don't capitalise on the full performance of the car, then we will be beaten. And if we capitalise, we may win by a very small margin. So for us, this is what we talk about in the team. These are the conversations that happen within the team. All the rest, for me, seems to be a bit built up externally, but it doesn't represent what is in the numbers, in our view.

Q: If we listen to some of your rivals, you're going to win this race by a mile here in Bahrain. How confident are you coming into the rest of the weekend?
AS: That's interesting, because my expectation is that Bahrain is the most difficult venue for McLaren of the first part of the season. I think during the test I'm not sure we saw that we were enjoying any advantage in terms of first lap. The only thing we saw is that the car is gentle on the tyres, which is a feature we couldn't exploit very much in Suzuka, which was a very low-degradation circuit. This one is a high-degradation circuit, so if anything, that could be our strength. But to capitalise on this strength, you have to qualify well. You don't have to be stuck in traffic. There are a few things that we need to get right. And yet, in this kind of low-speed dominated configuration, I'm not sure that McLaren will enjoy much advantage at all.

Q: You mentioned qualifying. Lando doing a tremendous job as he has done for many years now. Oscar, it feels, has stepped up. It was 21-3, the intra-team battle between them last year. Has Oscar stepped up? Has he found more pace over one lap?
AS: Yeah, I think you're right. I think we see that Oscar is just more confident in qualifying. He's just more capable of putting things together. I think he has more awareness, which comes with experience, which comes with all the analysis that has been going on during the winter. So we see a stronger Oscar, like we see, as usual, a very strong Lando. But for me, again coming back to the competitiveness of McLaren, what I see - and I still look at quite a lot of telemetry myself - is two drivers that push each other and pick from each other. If you see Free Practice 1, they're almost complementary as to where they go fast and slow. So they can see quite a lot of opportunities. And then I see the synergy. And the synergy means an elevation of the game. So for me, if anything, that's what I see has mostly changed compared to the past. We can see it as car performance, but for me it's a combination of car performance and what the drivers are able to achieve, elevating their own games.

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