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McLaren team principal Andrea Stella reiterated the team’s full support for Lando Norris following his collision with Oscar Piastri in the Canadian Grand Prix, although he acknowledged that some “tough” conversations with the world championship-contending teammates could be needed.
Norris ran into the back of Piastri on the pit straight when trying to overtake his teammate, with the pair having already cleanly swapped positions through the preceding two corners. The Briton accepted full responsibility immediately after the incident, and Stella says the way McLaren will support Norris to help retain confidence might have been different had he not done so.
“Obviously it’s an episode which cost him championship points,” Stella said. “It’s an episode for his own admission, he said, ‘The principle was clear, I just made a misjudgment.’ He never came to say, ‘Let’s talk about it.’
“So this may have an impact in terms of his confidence, but it’s up to us as a team to show our full support to Lando – and on this one I want to be completely clear, it’s full support to Lando.
“We will have conversations, and the conversations may be even tough, but there’s no doubt over the support we give to Lando, and over the fact that we will preserve our parity and equality in terms of how we go racing at McLaren between our two drivers. The situation would be different if Lando would have not taken responsibility and apologized.
“Lando himself will have to show his character to overcome these kind of episodes, make sure that he only takes the learnings, he only takes what will make him a stronger driver, and dismisses anything which will be a little bit of residual – a little bit of influence for the future which may not simply be good learning and a stronger driver.”
Stella says the number of events means there are plenty more opportunities for the two McLaren drivers to need to race each other closely again this season, and he thinks they will be better for having handled their first collision.
“Nowadays we go to 24 races and Sprints, so more and more situations where we can have these kind of episodes,” he noted. “I think having experienced, rather than having talked – even if the conversations we had about that were certainly strong, impactful and absorbed – but having experienced this kind of situation I think it will just make us more robust as a team, and in terms of each of our two drivers in these situations.
“Because the two McLarens racing close to one another, it will happen again. But there will have to be better judgment in terms of the distance, because [Canada’s collision] in effect is just a matter of distance between the two cars. There’s nothing like one driver wanting to demonstrate something else.
“If anything, the dangerous situation was more approaching the last chicane when they were side by side. And I saw some wisdom there.”
