McLaren reveal surprising response to audacious Oscar Piastri decision

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McLaren team principal Andrea Stella insists he remained "calm" throughout the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, even with Oscar Piastri's heart-in-mouth overtake on Lewis Hamilton. With the Australian having made his pit stop early, dispatching of traffic was required as he worked his way back to the sharp end, that included the Ferrari driver. However, the seven-time F1 drivers' champion had already proven a tricky hurdle to navigate for Lando Norris. It was something that led to his team-mate's side of the garage providing input on how Piastri could best negotiate the 40-year-old. It culminated in the new drivers' championship leader pulling off an audacious move - on a "dirty, dusty part of the race track", as F1TV commentator Alex Jacques put it - into Turn 23, a corner seldom used for overtaking. Nevertheless, it did not raise he boss' heart rate, who likened the situation to the Azerbaijan Grand Prix last season, where Piastri stormed to an impressive victory over Charles Leclerc. "For me, it was a race like Baku," Stella told media including RacingNews365 . "In Baku, it was very tense, if you remember, with Leclerc. "But somehow I was so calm, because its one of those in which you know that Oscar is in control, and he knows very well what he's doing. "So personally, I didn't have any kind of particular exciting moment there. He was very confident. He was very in control of the situation. Stella: 'Hamilton is a very, very fair competitor' Stella explained that he had no concerns or qualms about his driver going side-by-side with Hamilton through a high-speed section of the Jeddah Corniche Circuit. "And like I said, I think he also knew that corner was his chance," the 54-year-old added. "I also, personally, think that Hamilton is a very, very fair competitor, and I think he knows that if it wasn't that corner, it would have been the next corner where there was an opportunity... So I was relatively calm."