McLaren ‘probably the best team in F1 now’ thanks to Stella

Lando Norris says McLaren team principal Andrea Stella deserves credit for bringing the team to the front of the field in Formula 1.

McLaren are enjoying their most successful season in over a decade in Formula 1 in 2024, having taken three race victories, four pole positions and 15 podium finishes over the first 16 rounds.

Stella took over as team principal of McLaren ahead of the 2023 season following the departure of Andrea Seidl, who had led the team since Norris’s debut season in 2019. Norris says he “wouldn’t ask for anyone else to have [Stella’s] job” out of everyone he has worked with in Formula 1.

“I think Andrea is one of the most integral parts of kind of keeping the team together, motivating the team, pushing the team, making the team what it is today, which is close to – or probably is – being the best team in Formula 1 at the minute,” Norris told the official F1 channel. “So I have a lot of confidence in him.

“We just work well. There’s always good points, constructive points, criticism points, but everything that will just make us work better as a team.

“I think the most important thing that we have is just honesty between one another. When I agree or disagree, when he agrees or disagrees, we say it to one another and we kind of come up with the best solution. So I’m very happy with how he works, how he wants to understand things.”

Earlier in his career Stella was a race engineer to world champions including Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen. “He’s a smart guy, but he’s also a racer,” Norris continued. “He knows how you go racing.

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“He’s worked with a lot of incredible drivers in the past, so he knows the mentality of drivers as well and how every driver just wants to go out and win and kind of not listen to what people say, but also know you have to at the same time. So I couldn’t ask for a better boss.”

Lando Norris, McLaren, Baku City Circuit, 2024 — Norris scored his first two wins in F1 this year

Heading into this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Stella has taken the step of asking Oscar Piastri to support Norris’ bid to chase down his 62-point deficit to Max Verstappen in the world championship over the remainder of the season. Norris says that the team’s arrangement is more nuanced than him simply having clear number one status.

“A lot of people think it’s very simple and very straightforward – it’s not,” he said. “People can believe what they want and come up with their own opinions. But Oscar is also a driver fighting for his own championship, his own career and that’s a very valid reason for him to want to fight and do well.

“It depends what positions we’re fighting for. There’s many different scenarios. So people on the outside think it’s an easy, simple thing – it’s not. But we’ve come up with a good plan of how we can approach it all.”

Although he will benefit from a “bias” from his team for the rest of the season, Norris insists that does not want to win in a way that is “not fair”.

“It’s the same with everything, right? You want to win it fair,” he said.

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“I think in any sport, as soon as you know you’ve done something that’s not fair, that stays in your mind forever. But that’s not how I work, it’s not how McLaren works. So we’ll help each other within our constraints of how we can work together as a team. But that’s it.

“I think when another driver has an advantage and is performing better or is driving quicker, that’s an advantage he has because he’s doing a better job. If I’m behind and I’m not doing as good a job, that’s where I deserve to be.”