Stella, who has previously worked alongside world champions Michael Schumacher, Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen during his time at Ferrari, said the current McLaren pairing are operating at a standard worthy of fighting for a title.
“We have two drivers, which to the standards that even myself in my career I’ve been close to, driving with multiple world champions,” he said after the race on Sunday in Belgium.
“I think Lando and Oscar are operating at that level, at the level of deservedly being in contention for the drivers’ world championship.”
Piastri claimed victory ahead of teammate Norris after overtaking the polesitter during the opening green-flag laps following a Safety Car start in wet conditions.
Despite Norris closing a gap of over nine seconds to just over three in the final stages, Piastri held on to secure his sixth win of the season and extend his lead in the championship to 16 points.
“There is very, very little between our two drivers, and this is because the two drivers are racing at a very, very high level,” Stella added.
Secure your spot today.
“We are lucky at McLaren to have two drivers that deservedly are fighting for the world championship.
“I think the difference will be made by the accuracy, the precision, the quality of the execution.
“We saw in Silverstone that an issue, a sporting issue for Oscar during the Safety Car start and the consequent penalty cost him the race.
“And somehow here, we saw that somehow related to the circuit characteristic like we said before, it would have always been very difficult for Lando to keep the position starting first at the Safety Car restart.”
View this post on Instagram
Stella also addressed Norris’ mid-race complaints of energy deployment issues, revealing a minor battery irregularity had affected both cars.
However, he reiterated the natural difficulty for the leading driver to maintain position through the high-speed first sector.
“There was a slight anomaly,” he said.
“It’s very difficult for the car that leads the pack to actually arrive first in Turn 5.”
The McLaren boss also confirmed that the tyre strategy, which saw Norris opt for the hard compound compared to Piastri’s mediums, was down to the British driver.
Norris, who decided not to double-stack behind Piastri in the pits, hoped for a stronger end to the race but suffered time loss due to a few on-track moments.
“The choice was open. Lando had a couple of lock-ups in Turn 1 and also a little oversteering in Turn 9 that cost him time,” Stella said.
“I think this overall prevented us from having an interesting battle possibly at the end, but in fairness, even Oscar had a couple of times in Turn 1 a little bit of a time loss.
“It’s very difficult when you push so much in these conditions, it’s very difficult to always drive within the limit of the grip.”
As the championship fight between the two McLaren drivers heats up, Stella made clear he’s not looking for a stress-free experience as team boss.
“I’m not really interested in being comfortable,” he said.
Discussion about this post