Home F1 Stella knows Norris is world champion material despite self-criticism

Andrea Stella, Lando Norris, F1 — Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38, leads Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20

Stella knows Norris is world champion material despite self-criticism

29/08/2024

Andrea Stella shares his views on Lando Norris being self-critical about their F1 world championship situation and level.

Norris has been quite vocal about his limitations in the current F1 championship fight against Red Bull and Max Verstappen. In his defence, the Brit has been vocal also when he does well and when things work out well for him in the races.

Over the Zandvoort weekend, Norris noted about how he hasn’t done as well to be at the level as Verstappen in the championship fight. He thinks he has made a lot more mistakes than the Dutchman, which is why he has been behind in the pecking order.

He knows he has to perform at the highest level to take on Verstappen. And he is not afraid to be criticised or criticise himself when needed. At this juncture, he agrees that McLaren can be regarded as one of the fastest cars on the grid, even quicker than Red Bull.

His team boss Stella, though, thinks Norris can be a world champion and he is at the level too. His self-critical nature is appreciative. But he knows the value of the Brit. Post the Zandvoort show, the Italian once again addressed the team order topic.

Level to beat Max Verstappen –

Norris: “It is still the same, really. Just things I’ve looked back on and learned from, but I’m fighting for a championship, so I’m not going to be happy if I’m not performing at the level that I need to do to beat Max, Red Bull and the other drivers that I need to be beating. I’m still very happy with how the season has gone, but I just made too many mistakes, too many points I have given away, which is not the level we need to be at if I want to fight for a championship against a driver like Max. So, there were many things that I’ve looked into and have to work on and come back stronger. After the first half of the season, I’ve not performed at the level of a world champion – simple as that. At certain times I have [performed] and many races I have done, but there have also been little things that just let me down along the way, and those are things I cannot afford to have.

“But I know that. I am not happy with it. I’ve shown in the past and over the last few races, I’m not happy when I’ve not been at the level I need to be at. That’s just because I’m passionate and I want to win. Finding that line of not judging a driver for being passionate and wanting to win and not being happy with not winning, that’s what the athletes do. That’s what we want. We work hard to go out and do our best and not make mistakes and to try and win. And when we don’t do that, as an athlete, we’re not going to be happy. We’re not going to be satisfied with our own job. And that’s why I’ve not been happy with certain parts of the season and what I’m working very hard to try to improve.”

What has gone wrong, pressure –

Norris: “It is a mixture of things. There’s not a single thing I need to change, but honestly the start and Lap 1 – again not a lot of things to change, honestly. But Lap 1 is where most of my opportunities have gone away from me. From Lap 1 onwards, generally, the races have been very strong and the race pace has been good, the strategy has been good, I’ve been very happy with. So there are still so many strong things but always overshadowed by having a bad start, or a bad Turn 1 or being a bit safe at times, trying to stay out of trouble. So, things like that, so not a huge amount, but also not certain things, not easy ones to just guarantee a perfect change on.

“I just get criticised more by you guys. But it means more to me at the same time, like if you are second or third, you are not fighting for the championship, you are just a little bit more disappointed by the fact that 1-2-3-4 points could make a much bigger difference then in my type of scenario now, then of course it will affect you a little more and you need more at the same time. I don’t think it has changed much from an output point of view or from the outside it hasn’t changed much, like pressure wise, that kind of thing. It just the need for perfection and a step up that I needed to do. I think I have done a certain times but not just consistently enough. I think that is what I need to do more.”

Stella: “Lando is definitely world championship material. He performs already at levels that I’ve seen in the past in some of the great champions I have the luck to work with. He is on a journey like the entire team is. And if we compare against perfections, then we do see some opportunities. I mentioned before some of the opportunities coming in the first lap, for instance, and trying to find the balance between being aggressive or simply like staying away from situation or accidents. We definitely have something to clean on the start itself, which is not only driver, it’s also a team responsibility. And then I think he had a couple of situations in the races in which he might have taken some of the responsibility.

“But I think it was the team responsibility. Like if I think Canada, a case in which we didn’t pit Lando for the late Safety Car before the pit entry, or if I think about Silverstone and the final stint, that’s the team responsibility. If the team had operated at higher standards, then Lando would have more points in the championship, and definitely as a team we kind of appreciate that. he puts some of the pressure on himself, or he raises his hand and says, like, it was on me, but… I think I have enough experience to say, mate, don’t worry, that’s on the team. Keep doing the good job. Keep working to improve on your own opportunities. But definitely we as a team have quite a lot of work to do as well.”

Which title in reach –

Norris: “For the team, of course [the title is within reach] – that’s a much more obvious one. As a driver, of course, it is still in reach, but it’s a lot of points and it’s against Max. I want to be optimistic and say there are still chances. I know it’s a lot and it’s going to be a very difficult challenge but, with how we are performing and with how I know I can perform when things click, I still want to believe it’s possible.”

Fastest package now –

Norris: “Oh, 100%, yeah. The whole weekend in Zandvoort, I think we’ve had the best car. I think we’ve, on average, had the best car, for sure. We’ve not had a dominant car at any point this season, I would say. Even if you go back to Hungary, as much as people hate me to say it, Max was still very quick in Hungary. He just didn’t have a great race, but his pace was still very, very strong. And obviously we see, we know more information than people do on the outside, so we can comment in much more factual ways than people can who are just watching on TV and taking their picks and guesses. We’ve had, on average, the best car. You know, we probably should have won two, three more races as a team, but we didn’t.

“And we’re not saying anything more than that. You know, we should have won and we didn’t, and it’s because we’ve not done a good enough job. I didn’t do a good enough job. And we worked hard over the summer break to just try and take a step back and reset and go again. So yes, we’ve had a great car. This was, like I said earlier, our first time we bought some good upgrades to the car since Miami. They worked very well then. They’ve worked once again now. Yeah, it’s still a long way to go. So we still have to keep working hard because this is just Zandvoort. Monza is a completely different circuit. So we’ll keep our heads down and keep chipping away.”

Norris not driving like a champion –

Stella: “The first thing I make of his comment is that it kind of confirms his style. You know, he’s quite self-critical. He tends to look occasionally at the half-empty part of the glass. In reality, I think he definitely has the potential of a world champion, and he’s performing at world championship level. If we compare against perfection, then definitely we have opportunities. But I like that we compare ourselves against perfection, because this is what we need to do. I’ve been very encouraged that every little opportunity has been actually analysed in a great level of detail. Lando has always been very open and transparent, like he does with the public, definitely with the team, and we are together in trying to nail and polish all the possible situations in which we need to be better at delivering according to the potential.

“Definitely World Championship material. Like in everything, Lando, Oscar, the entire team, every single opportunity to improve needs to be attacked with determination to improve. So he can win world championships. That’s a statement that’s capital letters. In terms of this year’s championships, certainly we don’t give up. Numerically, from a driver’s championship point of view, it looks like there’s a big gap to fill. And we are chasing Max Verstappen, so definitely he’s not going to make it easy for us. But we are excited to be in this position. And definitely Lando is not in this position because somebody helped him. Lando is in this position because he performs very strongly. And that’s something that we should acknowledge and realize in terms of his achievements, not only in terms of the one, two, three opportunities in a season in which he could have done better. Because this is normal. And this is normal for every world champion in every season.”

Zandvoort run –

Stella: “Even after Hungary we said, ‘ah, it’s going to be P1, P2 every race’, but it’s not. It just seems to be very track dependent at the moment. But in Zandvoort, it was definitely beyond expectation in terms of qualifying performance, in terms of race performance, and to some extent even the tyre degradation was very good to the point that Lando scored the fastest lap of the race at the last lap.”

Team order –

Stella: “We always have conversations around team orders from race one. Because you always want to enter a race having clarity as to how we are going to manage the internal competition between the two drivers. So the conversations about team orders happen throughout the season, but then you have to take this conversation within the context of what is, for instance, the driver’s classification. In general, our approach is to be fair, to have, like we say, integrity in the way we go racing. And I keep saying that I’ve known no driver that wants to be number one out of a contract. Drivers want to be number one because they are fast on track. And then when you are fast on track, definitely you want to be supported by the team when it’s a 50-50 decision, or you have eight good weekends, and it’s a weekend in which you are struggling a little bit, then the team can assist, right?

“But there’s no driver that, like, we have nine races ahead of us, and we create a number one driver, and then what do we do? All the favours to the number one driver. This is not a healthy way of running a team. But for every race, we will analyse the situations, and in the 50-50 situations, or in those cases in which, in this case, Lando may need a bit of extra support from the team, we are going to give it, but the team includes Oscar. Like, the team should not do things that don’t look reasonable to Oscar. We are in this together. You don’t go, a team and a driver, and the other driver kind of follows, despite him. He needs to be part of this conversation, and he needs to be in agreement with what we think is the way forward.”