Stella gives his take on Piastri's 'cheeky' comment and how McLaren will manage intra-team fight going forward

McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella has given his take on Oscar Piastri’s reaction to Lando Norris gaining an unexpected tow from him during Qualifying at the Spanish Grand Prix, with the Australian heard calling the incident “cheeky” over the team radio.

After setting the pace in the Q1 and Q2 segments of the session, Piastri initially looked to have secured provisional pole during the opening runs of Q3 – before Norris went even faster, having taken a tow from his team mate in the final corner.

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When warned over the radio that Norris would pass him after crossing the line, Piastri dryly responded: “Cheeky”. Piastri went on to beat his team mate in the second runs, securing his fourth pole position of the season.

However, when asked later in the weekend – after a race in which Piastri led home Norris in a 1-2 result – about how much that Qualifying moment had acted as a reminder of the intra-team challenges McLaren could face during the rest of the season, Stella played down its significance and suggested that the onus was more on the squad’s communication.

“It was a minor situation,” the team boss explained. “We always tell our drivers like, ‘Don’t leave anything in the back of your mind, anything, throw it out, say what you think’. In this case I think that Oscar’s comment was to highlight a situation that we didn’t discuss before.

“In itself it’s not anything too controversial, but we sort of did not discuss that before and we don’t want to surprise our drivers with situations that we didn’t discuss before, so a little bit to take on for the team rather than for the drivers.

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“We have to do some homework and be ready even more for the coming races, which surely will be interesting.”

Stella also insisted that he does not expect the team’s pre-race briefings to become more difficult to handle, even if Piastri and Norris continue to find themselves battling each other at the front of the pack.

“The briefing is not getting like tougher,” said Stella. “The conversations are the same that we always have.

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“Obviously when the two drivers start one next to each other and there is 800 metres to corner one, you might have to reiterate every detail of the way we go racing together, but so far I just can only be very grateful to Lando and Oscar, who have approached this internal competition with a great sense of responsibility and pretty much sticking to the letter to what are our racing principles and approach.”

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