McLaren boss Andrea Stella has hailed Lando Norris’ gesture towards Oscar Piastri during the F1 Singapore GP as the team gets ready to move on from the crash between the two drivers.
The sprint segment on Saturday was a complete disaster for the Woking-based team, as both drivers ended up having a collision. In the dying stages of the sprint, Lando Norris opted to go for a lunge down the inside of Oscar Piastri, and as that move was made, it ended up ending the sprint for the Australian, while the Brit would hobble home in a compromised state.
McLaren bosses were not happy with what happened between the two drivers, and it has been reported that there were serious conversations with the reigning champion.
After his early reaction of just trying to dismiss the incident between himself and Oscar Piastri, Lando Norris would later admit that the move was over the line. The driver not only apologized to the team but also appeared to offer help to Piastri later in the race to help him overtake Lewis Hamilton.
Talking to the media, including Vision F1, McLaren boss Andrea Stella lauded Lando Norris’ gesture as he said,
“I’m pleased that Lando, at some stage in the race, adopted this way of thinking. This is what I expect.”
He added,
“This is what the one thousand people that work at McLaren expect from our drivers, so it’s good that we have had this example, and I expect definitely more of that in the future, independently of the fact that they will be heard on the radio or they will happen behind the closed door in every meeting, or in the way we approach our race plan.”
Lando Norris explains the reasoning behind his team radio during the race
After the race, Lando Norris explained why he made the call to the team, as he felt that his position in the race was now more or less fixed. With Oscar Piastri getting a puncture early in the race, this would have helped him. Talking about his thought process after the race, he said,
“Oscar was unfortunate with a puncture. I also had a few problems with the car myself, so there was more of an opportunity to get more points and get Oscar back up the order than there was for me to catch Kimi [Antonelli], because I couldn’t.”
He said,
“And I saw there was like three, four cars in between. So I asked, but I didn’t need to in the end, and we still got the best points we could as a team.”
This is the second time that the McLaren duo have come together on the track, with the first time happening at the F1 Canadian GP last season.
