Andrea Stella says as McLaren F1 team principal, he too learnt the subtleties when handling the title fight between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.
Stella is no stranger to fights between teammates in his long-standing career in F1. But as team principal, it was first at McLaren for him in 2025 when Norris and Piastri went head-to-head against each other for most part of the season, until the late arrival of Max Verstappen.
They never discounted the Dutchman in their minds, but for most part on paper, it was between Norris and Piastri. He had to handle the ‘Papaya Rules’ saga and take tough decisions, while keeping the ethos of McLaren in check. From outside, it seemed like a difficult job considering the complications.
For a larger audience, it seemed that McLaren created the complications by trying to support both the drivers, instead of focusing on one like Red Bull usually does. They stuck to their principals, which generated lot of media headlines and constant nit-picking from media and fans.
For Stella, it was all-new. There was a lot of things that he himself learnt from the different situations. Fortunately, there were not many flashing points apart from few, which they managed to handle. Much like Zak Brown, even the Italian was questioned for favouritism towards Norris.
But Stella handled it well in the end, as he admits that it was a learning curve for him as well along the lines. He gives credit to the drivers as well for keeping up with the concept of fairness that was instilled in them upon joining McLaren. “I’ve been lucky enough that we haven’t had many [major] flashpoints at all,” he said to media.
“And I think this is, thanks to the fact that we have Lando and Oscar on board, and we invested a lot right from day one with Lando and then day one with Oscar, on setting up the relationship based on the concept of fairness, equality, sportsmanship, and so on. And this is always the angle that we take, that we adopt in our conversations.
“Definitely, for me as well, it has been a journey in terms of understanding all the subtleties that you need to take into account while managing this kind of mission – which is to preserve the way we go racing while letting them race, which is what we are trying to do – and kind of embracing the difficulties that come with that. I’ve always tried to look at the facts. I focus on the facts. I talk about the facts.
“Facts are the foundation of all the conversations I have – including with the drivers. And we try to make sure that what is noise is very well distinguished from what is factual. And there’s a lot of noise. Formula 1 is a very popular sport. We all like to talk about sport. I do like to talk about football, and I become the best manager in the world at football. So I know that this is normal, but it’s important that you extract what is factual and you keep everyone focused on the facts,” summed up Stella.
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