Andrea Stella has been constantly telling Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri the same thing amid 2025 title fight

Follow us on Google Discover

McLaren are firmly in control of both championships heading into the summer break in 2025. With the constructors’ title pretty much guaranteed, the team have a dilemma for the drivers’ title.

Oscar Piastri has led the championship since the early stages, having found a new gear with six wins and four pole positions. But Lando Norris’ victory at the Hungarian Grand Prix has moved him just nine points behind his teammate.

The McLarens were surprisingly beaten by Charles Leclerc for pole position, but regained their advantage in the race to claim their fourth 1-2 finish in a row. Piastri stuck to a two-stop strategy to undercut the Ferrari, but his teammate was the beneficiary as he switched to a one-stop.

Piastri’s strategy was doomed to fail, says Sam Bird, as he had a 2.7-second pit stop, a gap that cannot be made up in one lap. The Aussie eventually passed Leclerc and set his sights on catching Norris.

The McLaren duo almost collided on lap 69 when Piastri locked the front at turn one and came millimetres away from hitting Norris. They had a similar incident in practice on Friday, which would have no doubt shaken the team.

Piastri was given a reminder of how McLaren go about racing by his race engineer over the radio, leading him to back off on the final lap and settle for second. This message has become all too familiar for the Aussie and Norris.

Andrea Stella has been ‘brainwashing’ Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri by constantly telling them how McLaren race

McLaren’s rules of engagement with their drivers have been a controversial topic for nearly a year. Ironically, it started at last year’s Hungarian GP, when Norris was forced to hand the win to Piastri after he overtook him through the final pit stops.

At Monza in 2024, Piastri lunged at Norris at the second chicane for the lead, which also allowed Leclerc through, who went on to win the race. This led to ‘papaya rules’ being introduced by McLaren, which detailed exactly how their drivers are to race each other.

The Woking outfit have given the pair the freedom to race in 2025, but journalist Ian Parkes has noticed that Andrea Stella may be ‘brainwashing’ his drivers. Norris and Piastri are constantly told how to battle on track and have it ‘ingrained’ in them that they cannot crash.

“I think there’s almost now an element of brainwashing that’s been going on with Lando and Oscar, because you think back to last season, after what happened in Hungary, you think back to last season after what happened in Monza,” he said via the RacingNews365 Podcast.

“Every message that has come out of McLaren since then, and it was really noticeable from Andrea over the course of the weekend.

“He was in the team principal’s press conference on Friday. He did post qualifying on Saturday and obviously session post Grand Prix on Sunday as well.

“And pretty much every single time he was asked about his two drivers going up against one another, he was going on about the principles of racing at McLaren Racing. And he emphasised many times that we are McLaren Racing.

“And [you] got to wonder after everything that happened between Oscar and Landau last year in Hungary and at Monza, that as I say, I do feel now that these two guys have it ingrained in their brains that they cannot clash at any cost.”

READ MORE: McLaren driver Lando Norris’ life outside F1 from parents to celebration

Andrea Stella has made McLaren’s strategy clear for the final 10 races of 2025

With McLaren being 299 points ahead of Ferrari in the constructors’ championship, the team will be fully focused on the drivers’ title. Piastri agrees with Max Verstappen in that the fight is between him and Norris.

McLaren want the title to be decided ‘on merit’ and they want to ensure that both drivers are given a fair chance to win. But the differing strategies in Hungary have caused further debate about their team orders.

Stella has ‘outright’ said McLaren won’t stop alternate strategies and will continue to give their drivers and engineers the freedom to do as they please. CEO Zak Brown says Piastri reacted positively after the race; Norris was afforded the one-stop strategy through circumstance rather than favouritism.

Stella was not ‘keen’ to criticise Piastri for his attempted overtake on the penultimate lap. But the Aussie will certainly know how he must battle Norris in the second half of the season as he looks to hold on to his championship lead.