Andrea Stella Says Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri’s Bond Has Grown Even Stronger After Their Title Fight

• McLaren team principal Andrea Stella says the working relationship between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri has grown stronger after their 2025 title fight, not weaker
• Norris beat Piastri to the championship after the Australian had led by 34 points with nine races to go, a battle that put McLaren’s papaya rules to the test
• Stella wants the team to build on Norris’s Hungarian Grand Prix win as McLaren looks to close the gap to championship leaders Mercedes in the second half of 2026

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella says the partnership between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri has come out of last year’s title fight stronger than it went in, even after the tension that built between the two team mates as the championship went down to the final race.

Norris denied Piastri the title after the Australian had led by 34 points with nine rounds to go, a swing that put McLaren’s papaya rules to the test in a bid to keep the fight fair between the two drivers. Speaking in a McLaren Q&A, Stella said he could not be certain the relationship would survive that pressure intact, and he admitted he has been struck by how well the pair have handled what came after.

Watch every race of the 2026 season live on Apple TV

A Bond That Held Under Pressure

Norris and Piastri have been team mates at McLaren from the start of the 2023 season, and last year’s title fight, which also involved Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, pushed that relationship further than it had ever been tested. The pair traded the lead of the championship repeatedly, and there were a number of flashpoints and moments of contention in the run to the final race, with McLaren’s internal rules for how the team should treat both drivers put under real strain.

Stella said it was not obvious the pair would come through that fight on good terms.

“It wasn’t a given that, after last year, when they found themselves battling for the world title right up to the final race, the harmony they’d built would remain intact: yet not only has this not changed, but the relationship between them and with the team has actually become even stronger,” Stella said.

Piastri Has Leaned on the Team More Than Norris

Stella drew a distinction between how each driver has processed the outcome of that title fight. Norris became champion, so a smooth working relationship in its wake might have been the expected result. Piastri, who lost out after leading for most of the season, has had a harder task, and Stella says the McLaren driver has responded by relying on the team more heavily as he works through it.

“Whilst this might, in a sense, have been expected of Lando, given that he was ultimately the one to become champion, it was not quite so predictable for Oscar, who, instead, has relied even more heavily on the team to accelerate his development, both on and off the track,” Stella said.

McLaren’s Slow Start to the 2026 Rules

The context behind Stella’s comments is a difficult first half of the season for the reigning constructors’ champions. McLaren has not been able to match its recent form under Formula 1’s new regulations for 2026, with Mercedes leading the way from Ferrari for most of the campaign. Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli has won six races and holds a 50-point lead over Lewis Hamilton, with Antonelli’s Mercedes team mate George Russell a further nine points back in third.

Norris sits fifth in the standings, 91 points off the lead, but he picked up his first win of the season at the Hungarian Grand Prix before the sport’s summer break, a result that offered a sign of progress for the team.

Stella Wants the Trophy Cabinet Kept Full

Stella is determined for McLaren to build on that Budapest result and has not given up on defending both the drivers’ and constructors’ championships this year.

“If we can continue the season as we did in Budapest, I think we can still achieve a great deal,” he said. “To do so, we must keep pushing with the development and outpace our rivals, who certainly aren’t standing still. There are still 12 races left on the calendar, so there are plenty of opportunities given that 546 points are up for grabs.”

Stella acknowledged the size of the task facing his team in both championships but pointed to the lessons McLaren carried from last season’s fight.

“Of course, the gap in both championships is significant, but we remember last year’s lesson well: after all, I always tell the team that if we’ve set up a new display cabinet to house the new, recent trophies at the McLaren Technology Centre, then we have a duty to do our utmost to keep filling it,” Stella said.

The season resumes with a Sprint weekend at the Dutch Grand Prix from August 21 to 23, giving Norris and McLaren their first opportunity to build on the momentum of Hungary as they look to close the gap on Mercedes over the remaining 12 rounds.

Want more F1Chronicle.com coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for the best F1 news and analysis on the internet.

More F1 Reading

• Mika Hakkinen Warns McLaren Not to ‘Rock the Boat’ by Signing Max Verstappen
• Deaths in Formula 1
• Are Any F1 Drivers Billionaires?
• How Much Does The Winner Of F1 Get Paid?

Written by

Jack Renn

Jack Renn is an editor at F1 Chronicle and a veteran motorsport journalist with 25 years of experience covering Formula 1 and international motorsport. A member of the Association Internationale de la Presse Sportive (AIPS), the global body representing accredited sports journalists, Jack has spent his career reporting from paddocks and press rooms across the F1 calendar. His work spans race analysis, technical insight, and in-depth features, giving readers authoritative coverage grounded in decades of firsthand experience at the highest level of the sport.

More articles by Jack Renn →