‘The fair thing to do’: Stella defends McLaren’s team orders

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has defended his team’s decision to instruct Oscar Piastri to move aside for Lando Norris during the Italian Grand Prix, insisting the swap was in line with the team’s long-standing principles of fairness.

The order, which restored Norris to second place behind race-winner Max Verstappen, came after a sequence of pitstops left the British driver disadvantaged by a slow tyre change.

Piastri initially questioned the instruction over team radio and later said that he would address the issue in the team’s debrief, but Stella believes the Australian will ultimately accept the call.

Why McLaren Reversed the Order

Norris had run ahead of Piastri since the start of the race and until both drivers made their only pitstops. In a strategic twist, McLaren gave priority to Piastri in the pit queue as he was under pressure from Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

Norris stopped one lap later, but a sluggish service dropped him behind his teammate.

“Today, when we started the pit stop sequencing, we started the sequence pitting Oscar first, but with a clear intent that we would not swap the positions,” Stella told F1 TV. “Unfortunately, this compounded with the fact that we had a slow pit stop.

“But because we had the sequence with Oscar first and then the slow pit stop, we thought that the fair thing to do was to go back to the positions that we had before the pit stop.”

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The decision came just a week after Norris suffered a heartbreaking retirement at Zandvoort due to a late technical failure. However, Stella insisted that past misfortunes played no role in McLaren’s Italian Grand Prix strategy.

“The decision we made today doesn’t have to do with what happened in the Netherlands,” he added.

“It’s completely independent of the DNF that the team caused in the Netherlands for Lando. This is a completely separate situation and we take one race at a time.”

Piastri’s Reaction and Team Values

Although Piastri complied with the order, he questioned why a slow pitstop should trigger a reversal. Stella, however, believes the 23-year-old understands the reasoning and will not dwell on the matter.

“I’m sure Oscar will be very comfortable with this. He already was comfortable during the race. So we show again the values, the principles that we have at McLaren,” Stella said.

He added that the team’s approach was shaped by lessons from last year’s Hungarian Grand Prix, when Norris initially resisted calls to let Piastri back through after benefitting from pit strategy.

“We had so many conversations after that race and found alignment with each other as to how we go racing,” Stella explained. “We just stick and refer to the principles and the approach that we have in the way we go racing. I think it’s all right.”

McLaren left Monza with a double podium, but the pitstop drama highlighted the fine margins in their fight with Red Bull while setting another precedent.

For Stella, the bigger picture remains about maintaining trust and sportsmanship within the team, even in the heat of a title battle.

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