McLaren happy to be ‘heavily challenged’ by Norris

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has refused to condemn Lando Norris’ radio outburst during the Dutch Grand Prix, instead welcoming being “heavily challenged” by the Briton.

Stella, though, has not completely cleared Norris of any wrongdoing as he is fully expecting him to correct the “tone and pitch” of his voice when he does take to the radio given the manner in which he came across to race engineer Jose Manuel Lopez.

Norris questioned whether Lopez was “stupid” during the early chaotic stages of the race at Zandvoort as calls were made by either the driver or pit wall on whether to switch from softs to inters given the early rain.

After staying out on slicks, Norris was informed by Lopez he was faster than his rivals on inters, even though the situation around him said otherwise, sparking his outburst.

Norris recognised that the way he came across with his message to Lopez was worse than he thought he sounded at the time.

Offering his thoughts on the situation, Stella said: “So at the time Lando made the comment, that I understand was broadcast, he was obviously frustrated because he realised that we were missing an opportunity by staying out one lap too much.

“This is because people misread the situation, so Lando was addressing it. This is what champions do.

“We like this character, we want to be heavily challenged by the driver, and we can be heavily challenged because our culture is strong. We can bear with that.

“We’d rather have this kind of challenge rather than a passive driver who just takes everything and doesn’t contribute to the development of the team, so for us, this episode is not a problem at all.

“We should also all be careful in extracting a single comment out of context and be over-judgmental about it.

“The review after Zandvoort was very constructive. I’m very pleased with again reinforcing the culture that we saw in the team and the drivers.”

Stella has conceded, however, that there is a line, and one of his drivers must be aware of crossing it.

Stella is certainly expecting Norris to be more considerate with how he delivers any criticisms or concerns in the future as he would not a message to be demotivating.

“In terms of the motivation, I talked about the culture before, and this means you have awareness of what racing is, of how you should take a driver’s comment, and just make use of it, as long as they are constructive, and just dismiss all the rest. We are very aware of that,” added Stella.

“Lando is aware he came across as tough to the team, but then he dealt with it immediately after the race, just with the quality of the person and the driver that we all know.

“So for the team, the matter is closed, and overall, for the team, we have grown, so we have no problem – no problem at all with that.

“In terms of how Lando perceives himself, I’m sure he will make some adaptations to his tone and pitch, so potentially we will hear Lando speaking in a slightly different way, a way that is closer to what he expects of himself.

“But for us, we are happy, and we just have to make sure we support him as well as he deserves.”