Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri told by McLaren F1 boss what will decide title fight
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has told his title-chasing drivers exactly what factors will decide the outcome of their battle for individual glory. McLaren have been so dominant this year that the constructors' championship already looks like little more than a formality.
They are 268 points ahead of nearest challengers Ferrari after only 13 rounds of the 24-race season. There is still a long way to go but, with most teams now focused on developing their 2026 cars for the new regulations, only a far-fetched series of events will stop them now.
But there is still plenty to be decided in the hunt for the drivers' title. Max Verstappen is slipping further back and seems highly unlikely to make it five in a row now, and so it is down to the two McLaren drivers to beat each other to individual honours.
Lando Norris looked to have been building momentum heading towards the summer break. His back-to-back wins in Austria and at Silverstone, in front of his home fans, saw him narrow the gap to Oscar Piastri above him in the championship to just a single-figure amount.
But then the balance of power shifted again at Spa-Francorchamps. Norris got pole but it was Piastri who flew through on the first lap to take the lead and control of Sunday's Grand Prix and, from there, he controlled it with the finesse and calm for which the young Aussie has become so well respected during his still relatively short time in Formula 1.
What is clear is that both drivers are operating at an astonishing level, no doubt being pushed to those heights by one another. The points gap between them has been very narrow for some time now and it looks likely to be the case for much of the rest of the year if they can both keep up this standard.
Their boss Stella thinks their can and believes it will be the finest of margins which decides who will be the drivers' champion by the end of the year. He said: "There is very, very little between our two drivers, and this is because the two drivers are racing at a very, very high level.
"We are lucky at McLaren to have two drivers that deservedly are fighting for the World Championship. I think the difference will be made by the accuracy, the precision, the quality of the execution. We saw in Silverstone that an issue, a sporting issue for Oscar during the Safety Car restart, and the consequent penalty cost him the race.
And here we saw that somehow related to the circuit characteristic, like you said before, like it would have always been very difficult for Lando to keep the position, starting first, at the same restart. At the same time, I think Lando didn't help himself. So I think the execution is what is going to make the main difference.
"We as a team, we will try and make sure that from a reliability point of view, from team operation point of view, we are as good as possible such that you will be the drivers deciding their own outcome in terms of competing for the Drivers' World Championship."
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Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
It's as if Lewis Hamilton knows time has sped past him... his sad deterioration began long before he became Ferrari's £60m-a-year vanity project, writes JONATHAN McEVOY
It was one of the saddest sights I have seen at a track, mortal tragedy aside. Here was one of the gods of motor racing holding his gloves over his visor to hide his tangled emotions from scrutiny. A few minutes later, he stood before the television cameras inviting Ferrari to sack him from his £60million-a-year job, after qualifying in 12th place for Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix. At 40, it was if he knew time had sped past him on the outside. Not quite monosyllabic but brief in his answers, he told Sky: 'I'm useless, absolutely useless. 'The team have no problem. You've seen the car's on pole. 'So we probably need to change driver.' Seeing Lewis Hamilton hide his emotions on Saturday was one of the saddest sights I've seen The seven-time world champion told Ferrari to replace him after qualifying 12th in Hungary He has been consistently outqualified and outpaced by his team-mate Charles Leclerc And he walked off to do his print session, which lasted all of 59 seconds. While he was hiding his visor, Charles Leclerc was putting the identical machinery on pole position, one so unexpected that the Monegasque said he no longer understood sport. How Hamilton can compute what is happening to him is impossible to know. He has been outgunned by Leclerc in qualifying 10 times to four. Now, Leclerc is as fast as a bullet over a single lap as there is. But since when was Hamilton, aka the GOAT, excused by any comparison? Leclerc has scored 30 points more than the Englishman in 13 races, not the most damning statistic actually. But week after week, circuit after circuit, it is Leclerc with the greater speed. You look up and, lo and behold, there is three-tenths between them. And here of all places! Where Hamilton has won a record eight times and taken pole nine times. It has been a shrine of revival in dark seasons. Where he won after a previously podium-free 2009 campaign. 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The Guardian
4 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘I'm absolutely useless': Lewis Hamilton says Ferrari should replace him after qualifying 12th
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Daily Mail
7 hours ago
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Lewis Hamilton sensationally tells Ferrari to REPLACE him just months after signing his huge £60m-a-year deal... and labels himself 'absolutely useless' following woeful Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying result
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