On a Sunday with team tactics or a lack of them in some cases, McLaren boss Andrea Stella reviewed the closing laps in the 2026 F1 Italian GP between his drivers Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.
Starting P6 after a grid penalty for blocking Lawson (Piastri) and P8 (Norris), the McLaren duo found themselves in 5th and 6th for the standing start. Having initially passed Piastri off the line, Norris lost out to Hamilton before the second chicane, and then his teammate on exit.
At one stage the gap between them was four spots as the Australian was 3rd, with the defending World Champion down in 7th. After dropping out of the train for P4 while trying to pass Gasly for 6th, Norris found himself over 7s behind his teammate on lap 31. However, as Piastri started battling Max Verstappen, the driver of car #1 made big inroads.
Once Norris overtook Hamilton on lap 42, he was within a second of his teammate. The two-time race winner in 2026 and the Australian then engaged in yo-yo racing for 4th, with a moment on the grass for the World Champion before the second chicane on lap 51. That was a misjudgement by him but nothing costly.
Eventually, however, the Brit made it stick on the last lap as he used everything he had on the straight at Ascari. Piastri fell just short of getting Norris into the Parabolica and before the line.
Andrea Stella on why they let Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris go at it in the final laps of 2026 F1 Italian GP
Speaking in his print media session post-race, the McLaren Team Principal discussed the closing stages and letting his drivers battle. The Italian believed that ultimately they could not fight Verstappen and decided not to hold station as the Dutchman had a significant tyre offset of 25 laps.
“I think in this situation we thought that for Lando to be able to have a chance on Max, he should firstly be able to pass Oscar.
“The two cars were on the same tyres, same tyre age, same car, so we thought there was no need to interfere with the normal development of the race. We let them race, we think that was the right thing to do.
“I think overall Max was faster, he was just caught in this hook that you have this year when you lose the slipstream here in Monza and you have to use the energy to defend against someone else.”
The moment Lando Norris ended up on the grass
The former Ferrari race engineer also talked about the moment on lap 51 where Lando Norris put his left hand side wheels on the grass as he tried to take a look at Oscar Piastri before the second chicane.
While he rightly had no issue with the Aussie’s driving as the Brit had an initial moment of frustration on the radio he backtracked on, Andrea Stella said a review will take place of how the last laps were managed by McLaren at the 2026 F1 Italian GP.
“The moment in which Lando put the wheels on the grass, he came on the radio, he made a comment like ‘he pushed me off’ or something, but actually when we reviewed it I think we saw that the episode is much more benign than what it might have looked with the heat of the moment.
“So I think it’s something that certainly we will review and in the context of this kind of racing, because I think you are right in highlighting that as soon as you fight with each other then you may lose time. So was there a better way for McLaren to give a fight to Verstappen? We will review, it wasn’t obvious to us and the people and we thought that it was more important to let them race according to our philosophy of going racing.”
The difficulties of managing drivers close on pace and regularly together on track throughout the course of an F1 season
Last year McLaren F1 had a dominant car for most of the season. Papaya rules were a big talking point throughout 2025 as the Woking-based squad tried to be as fair as possible to Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris all year.
On Sunday, Mercedes used teamwork to try and gap Max Verstappen and stopped yo-yo racing. That followed a swap at Zandvoort for 2nd place in the final laps when Kimi Antonelli had a massive tyre delta on George Russell. On the other hand, Ferrari have let Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton race hard throughout the campaign, with no team orders at all.
Andrea Stella outlined the balancing act teams face as to when they should let their drivers race and when it’s time to intervene for various reasons.
”You raise a very, very difficult matter.
”Even if we come from these year of 2024, 2025, even if in 2025 we achieve both championships with an approach to racing which was based on some important principles: equality, let them race, fairness.
”In reality it’s always difficult to translate these principles into real racing, like if you see today we took again an approach which is on the risky side, we let them race. And we ended up with one car having the wheels on the grass, something that we will have to review.
”It’s very difficult because I take the case today for us, you ask them not to race each other, Lando finishes fifth, and he may say ‘but for fairness I would have liked to have my opportunity.’ So it’s a tricky matter.”
Making sure the drivers are involved in creating rules of engagement
”I mean for us in our approach it’s important that we go united with the drivers. I think it’s difficult for a team to say, ‘this is what we impose, now you guys adapt to it.’ You always want to make sure that this process is getting consultation from all the parties.
”But as soon as you see that the team interest is under attack or is in danger, then you might have to get in the game and start to be strict from a team point of view.
”These are the foundation of how we approach it, we will have to definitely have some conversation internally like there will be conversations at Mercedes and there will be conversations at Ferrari.
”Certainly Lewis has been very vocal on this matter, and I’m sure this is something that they will be considering at every team.”
