McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said he never doubted for a moment that Lando Norris would obey their instructions to let his team mate overtake him.
Norris kept McLaren waiting for lap after lap as his race engineer Will Joseph pleaded with him to let Oscar Piastri through into the lead. Piastri led the early stages of the race but Norris moved ahead when McLaren performed his final pit stop on lap 46, before his team mate’s.
McLaren told Norris at the time he would have to be prepared to give the place back to Piastri. But Norris pulled further ahead of his team mate for over 20 laps during the final stint and only backed off to swap places on the 68th lap of 70.
Although Norris is McLaren’s leading driver in the championship and the closest threat to leader Max Verstappen, Stella said he never worried Norris wouldn’t give up the lead.
“I trust Lando 100%,” he told the official F1 channel. “I know exactly the nature of the two boys that drive the McLaren cars.
“Inside them there are two important aspects: The race driver and the team player. They are very well balanced and that’s why they are the McLaren drivers. There wouldn’t be space for drivers with different characteristics to drive a papaya car right now.”
Stella said he believed Joseph would be able to convince Norris that letting Piastri through was the fair thing to do as he’d benefited from the early pit stop which ensured he did not drop behind Lewis Hamilton
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“My trust was 100% and I thought it was more for Will [to handle],” said Stella. “I said ‘now Will I’ll leave you the difficult job, rebalance the race driver and the team player’.
“But I was absolutely trusting that Lando would collaborate to re-establish the order that was simply altered to protect the result of the team from having a problem at the pit stop today. So it’s sound from a team point of view.
“I feel very lucky, I have to say, that I can be the team principal of such a team and these kind of drivers.”
Both McLaren drivers have scored their first victories this season. Stella said the team’s latest triumph is “a special and important day for many reasons” as it underlines their status as championship contenders.
“It’s also important because it’s a milestone for the team in terms of our positive trajectory that we have established over the last year.
“So it’s very important but ultimately it doesn’t…
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