{"id":74421,"date":"2025-08-18T01:32:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T01:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/74421\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T01:32:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T01:32:07","slug":"andrea-stella-compares-piastri-and-norris-to-previous-champions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/74421\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrea Stella compares Piastri and Norris to previous Champions"},"content":{"rendered":"

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella believes Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris<\/a> are operating at a title-winning level.<\/p>\n

Stella, who spent over a decade at Ferrari before joining McLaren with Fernando Alonso<\/a> in 2015 (continuing as the Spaniard\u2019s race engineer) has worked with several World Champions.<\/p>\n

From Schumacher to Alonso to Raikkonen, the Italian is no stranger to working with some of the F1 greats.<\/p>\n

With half of the season complete, Stella believes his drivers are more than deserving of being in the position to take the crown.<\/p>\n

Stella praises Piastri and Norris\u2019 level<\/p>\n

Most of the pre-season narrative heading into 2025 was focused on Lando Norris and Max Verstappen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With Norris representing Verstappen\u2019s closest threat last year, he was seen as the most likely candidate to defeat the Dutchman.<\/p>\n

What the majority of fans and analysts did not count on, however, was Piastri to become a title contender.<\/p>\n

Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/p>\n

The Australian has made clear forward steps over the last twelve months, both in qualifying and race trim.<\/p>\n

Although young drivers typically progress in their first years in the paddock, Piastri\u2019s improvements between 2024 and 2025 are particularly notable.<\/p>\n

Despite this, it would be inaccurate to say the Australian has been significantly faster than his British teammate.<\/p>\n

The 9-point gap between the McLaren duo in the standings demonstrates that both drivers have missed opportunities throughout the season.<\/p>\n

After what has been an exceptionally close first half of the year, team principal Andrea Stella<\/a> is full of praise for his duo:<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is very, very little between our two drivers,\u201d he explained just before the summer break.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd this is because the two drivers are racing at a very, very high level.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are lucky at McLaren to have two drivers that deservedly are fighting for the World Championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike I said before, we have two drivers\u2026 [performing at a level] that even myself in my career I\u2019ve been close to, driving with multiple world champions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Lando and Oscar are operating at that level.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the level of deservedly being in contention for the Drivers\u2019 World Championship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/p>\n

A golden opportunity<\/p>\n

Of course, it is not necessarily a surprise to see a team principal complimenting their own drivers.<\/p>\n

Stella, for obvious reasons, wants to praise Piastri<\/a> and Norris as much as possible \u2013 so whoever emerges with the crown is seen as deserving.<\/p>\n

The Italian team principal also wants to ensure that neither of his duo are seen as receiving preferential treatment.<\/p>\n

With Max Verstappen no longer a realistic title challenger, McLaren can let their drivers race with relatively little risk.<\/p>\n

Even in the even of a race-ending incident, the papaya team should still claim both Championships with ease<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Then again, it should always be noted that internal dynamics within a team can change.<\/p>\n

For now, both drivers appear on relatively good terms \u2013 and neither has conducted themselves on track in a way to spark a response from the team.<\/p>\n

The only incident between Piastri and Norris this year was in Canada \u2013 where Norris paid the price for his own mistake, and therefore taking away the headache McLaren would have faced in the aftermath.<\/p>\n

Still, there is always the possibility that \u2013 as the season continues \u2013 one incident could disrupt McLaren\u2019s harmony.<\/p>\n

Main photo: Joe Portlock\/Getty Images (via McLaren media gallery)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McLaren team principal Andrea Stella believes Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris are operating at a title-winning level. Stella,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1687,35742,372,6537,1693,1469,1470,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-74421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-f1","tag-f1","tag-f1-2025-season","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-lando-norris","tag-mclaren","tag-oscar-piastri","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}