How Montreal mishap will only make McLaren stronger

Andrea Stella insists that valuable lessons will be learned from the contact between Norris and Piastri

It was inevitable given the high stakes that at some stage this year McLaren team mates Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri would get into a tangle on track. Even team boss Andrea Stella acknowledged recently that it was a matter of when, and not if.

It happened in Montreal on Sunday, but in slightly unusual circumstances in that the drivers weren’t racing each other into a corner with blame to be apportioned, as was the case in the past with controversial famous moments involving Lewis Hamilton/Nico Rosberg or Sebastian Vettel/Mark Webber, for example.

In this instance they’d survived a wheel-to-wheel encounter heading into the final chicane, and it was on the straight that followed that Norris hit the back of Piastri, and paid the price.

He made a simple misjudgement under DRS in the Australian’s slipstream, and immediately told the team on the radio that it was his fault. Later he did the same when he bumped into Piastri in the TV interview pen.

It might not have been the typical sort of team mate conflict that we were expecting, but contact is contact, and the drivers are well aware that it’s a cardinal sin in any team.

Fortunately McLaren is in a good place at the moment, and Stella is a brilliant manager, always able to deal with any situation and find the positives.

When he spoke to the media shortly after the race he’d already found a way to ensure that the incident could be used to ensure that there would be no repeat.

“We said a few times that it wasn't a matter of if, it was more a matter of when,” said the Italian. “And the when is Canada 2025. We never want to see two McLarens having contact. This is part of our principles. We saw it today.

“This is just a result of miscalculation, a misjudgement from a racing point of view, which obviously should not happen, but at the same time, it's part of racing, and We did appreciate the fact that Lando immediately owned the situation.

“He raised his hand, he took responsibility for the accident, and he apologised immediately to the team. He came to apologise to me as team principal in order to apologise to the entire team, and it's important the way we respond and we react to these situations, which ultimately will be a very important learning point.”

He added: “I don't think it's a learning from a theoretical point of view, because the principle was already there, but it's a learning in terms of experiencing how painful these situations can be, and this will only make us stronger in terms of our internal competition and in terms of the way we go racing.”

For Stella Norris’s immediate mea culpa was crucial, and it was also a reflection of the team-focussed environment that he has built.

“I think in order to make an assessment as to the reason of having this sort of misjudgement from a racing point of view, I think we will have to have a few good conversations,” he said.

“Now that we are in the heat of the moment, for me, the most important thing is to see a reaction where people take responsibility of their actions, and we have already seen it.

“And I talked to Oscar as well, and he sort of is cool with the situation, because Lando apologised, they know that a misjudgement in racing can happen.

“But I think obviously in the coming days, thanks to these conversations, we will have to go into what is needed in order to make sure that when we go racing, we preserve the margins that are required.”

Stella downplayed the suggestion that having qualified only seventh Norris was perhaps under extra pressure to find a way by Piastri and get a result.

“From Lando's point of view, specifically, I'm not sure that there is any reason to do with the fact that he might have struggled a little bit yesterday in qualifying to capitalise on his speed,” he said.

“Speed that he had demonstrated throughout the weekend. Surely, there was a bit of frustration for not having been able to qualify as high as he would have liked. But at the moment, I wouldn't say that that's the reason why there was a misjudgement today.

“I think this is too long a shot in terms of correlating these two events, but definitely, there will be good conversations, but they will happen once we are all rested and calm and we have the possibility to take all the learning and discharge what doesn't have to come with us in the future.”

From the outside at least if there was any glass half full reflection it was the fact that as team McLaren had lost only a fifth place, as opposed to a first and second. However when I put that to him Stella insisted that the relative low cost didn’t make the incident any less serious.

“The fact that the points today, or what we were fighting for, was not a victory – even if you never know in a race until the chequered flag – I think this is just a very, very minor mitigation, let me say.

“We act based on principles, and based on principles, there should be no contact between two McLarens. So from this point of view, if anything, let's say Lando pays the price, from a championship points point of view, and let me say, luckily, there was no double penalty with the points loss for the other car, which had no responsibility in this contact.”

The key thing now is to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. Stella is adamant that it’s now a case of lessons learned.

“I think in terms of the moving forward and possible repeat or not when we go racing, and there's many races like nowadays, because 24 races, and sprints, so more and more situations where we can have these kinds of episodes, like I said before.

“I think having experienced, rather than having talked, even if the conversations we had about that, they were certainly strong, impactful and absolved, but having experienced this kind of situation, I think it will make us just more robust as a team, and in terms of each of our two drivers against these situations because the two McLarens racing close to one another, it will happen again.

“But there will have to be better judgment in terms of the distance, because today, in effect, is just a matter of distance between the two cars. There's nothing like one driver wanted to demonstrate something else.

“If anything, the dangerous situation was more approaching the last chicane when they were side-by-side. And I saw some wisdom there. But somehow after that, and we know that with the DRS, there could be some misjudgements that we have seen in the past as well.”

Stella insists that the drivers will remain free to race, and that it really will be a case of the best man winning – the team won’t make a call.

“The being free to race and the being clear as to how we go racing, is a value of racing,” he said.

“And is a value of racing that we want to try and exercise and respect as much as we can, rather than every time that we have a proximity between the two cars, then having control from the pit wall.

“I think like that, racing may soon become a bit of an artifact, and we want to give Lando and Oscar opportunities to race and opportunities to be at the end of the season in the position that they deserved to be in based on their merit, based on their performance based on the racing quality that they have expressed through the season, rather than being at the end of the season and realise that the points have been controlled more by the team, rather than the quality of their driving.

“This is not necessarily a simple and straight exercise, but we want to try and do it as best as we can. So I don't foresee that today's episode will change our approach from this point of view, if anything, it will reinforce, and it will strengthen that the principle we have require more caution by our drivers.

“Because if we say that there should be no contact between the two McLarens, we need to have the margins to make sure that we have no contact, even if, in a DRS situation, the car may get almost a little bit sucked onto the other car, and cause this kind of misjudgement as to the distance.”

The bottom line is that Montreal will ultimately be a perfect demonstration of how with Zak Brown’s help Stella has built a great team, and has proven to be a great boss.

“In the heat of the moment that looks like the worst disaster ever,” said Stella. “But in reality, the strength of being racers, the strength that comes from having a strong culture, is the fact that you will process the episodes you will review, you will take all the positive learning, and you will dismiss anything that doesn't have to come with us into the way we go racing in the future.

“This is the mindset that we all have at McLaren, and I think this has been proven by the way Lando handled the situation, and definitely that's going to be the kind of conversation that we will not only have with our drivers, but this is the kind of conversations that we will have with the entire team.

“We lean on our culture, which is very strong, and we use these episodes once they are a little chilled and our mind is colder than it's in the heat of the moment to become a stronger team with two stronger drivers.”