Stella: Monza clash between McLaren drivers 'unacceptable'

McLaren F1 boss Andrea Stella said the run-in between Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris in Sunday's Italian Grand Prix was "unacceptable" and did nor reflect the way the team goes racing.

Piastri had just emerged from the pits on lap 24 on a fresh set of hard tyres when he was caught by Norris – who had pitted a lap earlier – as the pair entered the braking zone for the first chicane.

As the Aussie ran wide in the corner he nearly collided with his teammate's car which was on the outside. Instead, the McLaren duo slightly touched but neither car suffered any damage while the stewards concluded that the run-in did not require any further investigation.

But an unhappy Stella still deemed the incident as "unacceptable as it jeopardized the team's position.

"There should never ever be contact between two McLaren cars," the Italian said. "There was a contact, which doesn’t fit the way we go racing at McLaren.

"What is important is to have clear parameters as to what you deem acceptable and what you deem unacceptable. It’s not an emotion thing, it’s just like you do with other things.

"You deal with racing in a similar way. This is very clear that for any driver, there’s something bigger than them. It’s the team."

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However, Stella appeared to give his drivers – especially Piastri – a bit of leeway, suspecting the latter had perhaps been caught out by his cold tyres and adding that the matter justified a more detailed review.

"I need to review. Like all things, we will do it calmly. There’s nothing that we need to do urgently. We will take the adjustments that we need," he said.

"It’s always a little tricky when you leave the pits, especially on hard tyres. It could be that certainly Oscar was trying to see where he could place himself so that he could keep the position.

"But on colder tyres, this could be slightly more difficult than he might have anticipated. We could absolutely conclude that this is just a little misjudgement.

"Both drivers were aware that there must be no contact between two McLarens and it was just an issue with the execution - we all have issues with execution."

When it was suggested to Stella that McLaren's undercut strategy for Norris had perhaps led to the run-in, the McLaren F1 boss reiterated that it remained unacceptable for the team's drivers to "affirm themselves" and put their own interests above those of the team.

“If the contact is due to the fact that there was pressure because of the undercut, then we have something to review," he said.
"Because it means drivers put their team at risk because of affirming themselves. This is not acceptable."

Stella denied that his approach contrasted with Ferrari's "let them race" principle that was put to good effect in the closing stages of the Italian Grand Prix, thanks to Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc.

"My role is to give them principles and a clear parameter within which they can race," Stella explained. "This is what we want to see - it is exciting to see like the Ferraris today.

"In terms of how you stay within the parameter, it’s not for us to say because we are not the drivers.

"It’s actually within them to have the skillset to say, ‘the tyres are a bit cold, maybe I need to take more margin’. They need to appreciate that there is no way the line should be crossed."

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