How Andrea Stella responded when asked about McLaren’s ‘unconventional’ Italian Grand Prix team orders

Follow us on Google Discover

Lando Norris finished ahead of Oscar Piastri in the Italian Grand Prix to close the championship battle by three points.

The Briton finished in second place and scored 18 points, while Piastri only scored 15 points with a third-place finish, but their race was marred by controversy surrounding team orders at the end.

McLaren had instructed Norris that they wanted to pit Piastri first to cover off a threat from Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who was the first of the leaders to pit.

When they did give priority to the Australian, it was Norris who suffered a slow pit stop, and he emerged in third place. Piastri was instructed to give the position back and obliged, despite questioning the team order and whether a slow pit stop was “part of racing” in the McLaren rules of engagement.

McLaren felt they had messed up and wanted to rectify the situation, but speaking after the race, journalist Andrew Benson has revealed what team principal Andrea Stella told him on the BBC Chequered Flag podcast.

Andrea Stella says McLaren will review Italian Grand Prix strategy

After the race, Piastri changed tack and felt the decision to swap the cars was fair when discussing it with media.

Karun Chandhok felt Piastri did the right thing by not stoking any unwanted controversy at McLaren, considering it was a mistake by the mechanics. Benson revealed what Stella told him when he asked the McLaren team principal twice about the strategy.

“They chose to pit Piastri first, which was an unconventional decision. They said it was to cover off Leclerc, but that’s a questionable justification because Leclerc was 28.5 seconds behind Piastri and closing at about half a second per lap,” said Benson.

“It takes about 25 seconds for a pit stop at Monza, so by that reckoning, they had seven laps of cushion before Piastri really came under threat from Leclerc.

“I asked Andrea Stella about that twice, once during the press conference and once after he finished and asked him to explain it again. He said ‘We will review it with the strategy team; that decision came from the strategy team’.”

‘Senior people’ within F1 paddock felt McLaren were unfair to Oscar Piastri in Hungary

The strategy in Monza was noted for being a reverse of what happened in Hungary last year, when a decision to prioritise the second-placed driver over the lead driver led to a swap in positions.

But it is not the first time McLaren has come under scrutiny for its strategies that have favoured one driver over the other in the close title battle, notably in Hungary when Norris was told to stay out for longer than Piastri.

Benson said people within the F1 paddock felt McLaren were unfair to Piastri, given he was challenging Leclerc for the win in the opening stages.

“There are people in the pit lane, senior people, who think that was an unfair decision on McLaren’s behalf against Piastri and in favour of Norris,” said Benson.

“And they were very surprised that they did it, but McLaren were very firm ‘No, we’re letting them race and if they wanted to choose a different strategy to beat the other, that’s fine.'”

A combination of a slow Leclerc and traffic ultimately prevented Piastri from winning the race, despite being the quickest out of the two McLarens. Norris’ fortune would turn into misfortune at the Dutch GP when an oil leak forced him to retire, which allowed Piastri to extend his championship lead by over 30 points.