McLaren’s ‘full support’ for Lando Norris after Oscar Piastri Montreal clash

McLaren’s Andrea Stella has said Lando Norris will have full support in getting over the disappointment of triggering a clash with Oscar Piastri in Canada.

Attempting to overtake Piastri in the closing stages of the Canadian Grand Prix, Norris misjudged his manoeuvre and clipped the back of his teammates’ car, damaging his own car which resulted in an immediate retirement.

Andrea Stella: McLaren giving Lando Norris ‘full support’

With Norris having only ruined his own race result as Piastri continued on to finish in the same fourth place he occupied before the clash, the British driver quickly and publicly apologised for having triggered the incident.

Even before climbing out of his car, Norris apologised over team radio and, upon returning to the media pen, sought out Piastri to apologise to the Australian before showing his contrition throughout his media interviews.

Norris has shown a tendency to be extremely self-critical in the past and, having been the catalyst of the long-awaited intra-McLaren clash after a year of Norris and Piastri battling closely, team boss Andrea Stella was asked if he fears the British driver could let his head drop and “beat himself up” for the incident.

“It is an episode that cost him championship points and is an episode that, from his own admission, he said the principle was clear: ‘I just made a misjudgment,'” Stella explained.

“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.”

Norris quickly holding his hand up and taking responsibility, Stella said, earned him this right.

“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,” he said.

“The situation would be different if Lando had not taken responsibility and apologised.

“Lando himself will have to show his character to overcome this kind of episode, 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 influence for the future which may not simply be good learning and a stronger driver.”

The incident risked triggering far greater fall-out than it did, had Norris taken a different attitude towards his misjudgement, and Stella said the conversations between driver and team would only re-emphasise the need to take the positive lessons away from the contentious moment.

“We will have to go into what is needed in order to make sure that, when we go racing, we preserve the margins that are required,” he said.

“From Lando’s point of view specifically, I’m not sure that there is any reason to do with the fact that he might have struggled a little bit in qualifying to capitalise on his speed, speed that he had demonstrated throughout the weekend.

“Surely, there was a bit of frustration for not having been to qualify as high as he would have liked but, at the moment, I wouldn’t say that that’s the reason why there was a misjudgment today.

“I think this is too long a shot in terms of correlating these two events but, definitely, there will be good conversations, but they will happen once we are all rested and calm, and we have the possibility to take all the learning and discharge what doesn’t have to come with us in the future.”

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Having come out the other side of what seemed to be an inevitable clash between his two drivers, Stella said McLaren has learned an invaluable lesson that can now be taken forward; and it’s one that doesn’t change the parity and fair equality that the two drivers enjoy as they each bid for their maiden Drivers’ Championship title.

“We said a few times that it wasn’t a matter of if, it was more a matter of when, and the when is Canada 2025,” Stella said.

“We never want to see the two McLarens having contact. This is part of our principles. We saw it today.

“This is just a result of a miscalculation, a misjudgement from a racing point of view, which obviously should not happen, but, at the same time, is part of racing.

“We did appreciate the fact that Lando immediately owned the situation, raised his hand, and took responsibility for the accident.

“He apologised immediately to the team. He came to apologise to me as team principal in order to apologise to the entire team.

“It’s important the way we respond and we react to these situations, which ultimately will be a very important learning point.

“I don’t think it’s learning from a theoretical point of view, because the principle was already there, but it’s learning in terms of experiencing how painful these situations can be, and this will only make us stronger in terms of our internal competition and in terms of the way we go racing.

“This is not necessarily a simple and straight exercise, but we want to try and do it as best as we can.

“So I don’t foresee that today’s episode will change our approach from this point of view – if anything, it will reinforce and strengthen that the principles we have requires more caution by our drivers.”

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