01/09/2025 06:30
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has no doubt F1 will now see
'the best of Lando Norris' after the British driver suffered a
gut-wrenching retirement in the Dutch Grand Prix. Although losing
second off the grid to Red Bull's Max Verstappen, Norris quickly
managed to make amends and then kept team-mate Oscar Piastri honest
throughout the race, and, in particular, after two restarts
following a horror day for Ferrari. Norris was within 1.5 seconds
of Piastri in the closing stages, and poised to make a possible
challenge over the closing laps when 18 points slipped through his
fingers with a suspected power unit issue. Norris now faces a
considerable 34-point deficit to Piastri with nine races remaining.
Assessing a bitter-sweet day for McLaren, speaking to Sky Sports F1
, Stella said: "Today, we experienced the two sides of motorsport.
"On one side, we have the joy, the satisfaction for another victory
for McLaren, a victory for Oscar, a deserved one. He ran a very
strong and clean weekend. "And on the opposite side, we have the
disappointment and the pain for our retirement. Lando was in
contention to try and win the race. He was certainly happy. A
one-two possible for McLaren, so we have the joy and the pain at
the same time. This is motor racing." There is now a question mark
as to how Norris will respond given the deficit, and whether it can
be bridged, given the two cars are identical, and the margins
between the two drivers are wafer-thin. Asked whether Norris could
pick himself up and still contend for the championship, Stella
replied: "100% Absolutely, no doubt, absolutely no hesitation. "If
possible, we will even see the best of Lando as he tries to recover
the points he missed. "And he missed the points ultimately, and
this is not ideal, because of a problem that happened on the car,
which is a situation that definitely we wouldn't want to have. "We
would like to give the same opportunity to both drivers, but I'm
sure Lando will give his best, and we will definitely try and
recover the points that we missed today." Stella, meanwhile,
insisted it would be "unfair to speculate" early on the issue that
undermined Norris' championship challenge, adding: "We are one
team. We go together. "There's no difference in terms of where the
responsibility lies. We will review. We will see where the problem
is. We will fix it, and we will go again."
