F1 News: McLaren Boss Regrets Creating Stress Between Lando Norris And Oscar Piastri In Suzuka

Andrea Stella wants to avoid a conflict between the two McLaren drivers in the future.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella revealed that he regrets putting the McLaren team in a situation where they had to order Oscar Piastri to make way for Lando Norris during the Japanese Grand Prix, thus creating stress between the two drivers. 

Norris and Piastri have partnered in a way in several races to maximize the team's result before theirs. The result of an impressive partnership is a fifth spot in the Constructors' Championship for McLaren, not too far behind Aston Martin. 

However, there was a slight change in the trend in Japan where both Piastri and Norris were competing against each other for podium finishes as they tried to catch up with race leader Max Verstappen. 

The twist in the tale occurred when Piastri, who was behind Norris, took advantage of a virtual safety car period and grabbed the lead McLaren position. But eventually, as the race progressed, Norris closed in with fresher tires behind Piastri.

At that point in time, the team intervened and ordered Piastri to allow Norris to pass, which he did. Fortunately, the race ended without arguments or fights. Norris secured the second position and Piastri third, thus marking the first double-podium finish for McLaren this season. 

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However, despite the happy ending, Stella expressed that the team should avoid such a situation in the future whenever possible. He told Autosport:

“It [Japan] was much, much easier in a way, as those two situations were stressful, especially the one in Monza.

"And when I say stressful, I mean stressful because we created stress between our two drivers, which we could have avoided, really.

"That’s something that we reviewed. It may happen again in the future, but when it is avoidable, we should avoid it.

"In this case, the approach was, let’s see how fast Lando is closing, and let’s see if the overtaking comes naturally.

"When we saw that it doesn’t come so natural, then we asked the drivers to swap, so that we wouldn’t lose race time for both.”