In a move unlikely to impress fans of Oscar Piastri, Andrea Stella claims that the Australian's victory owes a lot to teammate Lando Norris.

While the Australian did the donkey work in passing pole-man Charles Leclerc and subsequently fending off the Ferrari driver for 31 laps, the McLaren team boss believes Norris played a significant part in his victory.

Once the pit stops began, Norris, who had started from 15th after failing to make it out of Q1, moved up through the field and was running sixth when Sergio Perez made his stop on Lap 13. The Mexican rejoined the race behind Norris finally passing him two laps later as first Charles Leclerc and then Piastri made their stops.

Once Carlos Sainz had also stopped on Lap 17, Leclerc reassumed the lead ahead of Piastri, the Australian making his race-winning move three laps later.

"Perez was undercutting and effectively, without Lando's help, Perez could have pitted and stayed ahead of Oscar, and the race could have unfolded in a completely different way," claimed Stella at race end.

"So, I think 50% of Oscar's victory today is shared with Lando," he added, "it just shows that we are approaching racing as one team.

"We had conversations before the weekend where we would bias one way or the other," he continued. "But we approach every weekend trying to maximise the result for the team, and if one driver needs help, the other driver will do it."

Indeed, other than Adrian Newey's move to Aston Martin it was McLaren's admission of "bias support" to Norris in forthcoming races that dominated talk in the Baku paddock.

Funny enough, on Sunday the same commentators lauding Piastri's determined defence of his lead, only two weeks earlier had been demanding that McLaren introduce team orders in order to aid Norris' title bid.

Asked about Piastri's move on Leclerc, Stella admitted that he feared it would end in tears... or at least the run-off.

"When I watched it live and I saw him going, my instinct said he's going to go long, because the delay in the braking point," said the Italian.

"He came from quite far, and still he negotiated the apex. So yeah, I was surprised. But Oscar is always surprising us with his ability, and I would say today, he gave also a demonstration of his mental strength.

"He drove like a driver that has a lot of experience, that has been under this kind of pressure before, that can look with one eye at the mirror, with the other eye at where the braking point is."

To the comments...

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by JPS, 17/09/2024 9:54

"Staggeringly dumb comment by Andrea to make about one of his drivers who pulled off one of the great passing moves on the season. Then to follow it up with great clean defending on the limit lap after lap. But somehow Lando slowing in corners for two laps as 50% worthy? FFS Next Stella will be saying Checo deserves to be 50% world champion for holding up Lewis in the final race of 2021!
Yes thank Lando for helping but don't give him more credit than is worth. I'm an Oscar fan but Lando seems to be big enough to get on with it. He knows he didn't realistically have a chance of winning that race. "

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2. Posted by kenji, 16/09/2024 14:31

"Stella's comments are all about trying to save face as the 'new rules/team orders seem to have been made to look silly. To claim a 50% contribution by Norris is total BS. The race in it's entirety was won by the sheer brilliance of Piastri's 'reading' the race and super handling skills. As @ Chester says it's an attempt to massage his No.! driver's bruised ego. Pathetic really considering how the team have treated Oscar in past races."

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3. Posted by Mad Matt, 16/09/2024 13:18

"I think people are far too eager to jump on the smallest of comments. As our beloved editor says above, commentators were pushing McLaren to support Lando a week ago and saying how bad Checo was doing against Max.

I felt sorry for Lando having his qualifying ruined by a yellow flag and I certainly didn't miss the irony of him helping out Oscar. Could we say "50%"? For me all I could see was that Oscar getting caught behind Checo would have made things much harder and probably meant a win was off the cards, so a key intervention but not a huge amount of effort from Lando and in terms of the actual work that was 100% Oscar.

For the rest, Oscar drove very well, I think one of his best skills is not defending when he doesn't need to, he seems really good at judging that."

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4. Posted by Chester, 16/09/2024 12:03

"Stella knows 50% is not true. He is just soothing Lando's ego. After all, he has a delicate tightrope to walk the rest of the way."

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5. Posted by raimon_d, 16/09/2024 9:47

"To hold PER for less than 2 laps and to make him lose 2.5" is not 50% of the victory of PIA. I think Stella is disrespectful to PIA. His pass on LEC and his later defence during 20+ laps was a master's class that seems Stella is not ready to accept. PIA is much better than Stella thinks."

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50% of Piastri's victory down to Norris, suggests Stella

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