'McLaren's let-them-race philosophy a hard tightrope to walk'

Lando Norris, Andrea Stella and Oscar Piastri — Andrea Stella, centre, has been credited by many with McLaren's rise back to the top of the sport [Getty Images]

Lando Norris says he and McLaren are "ready" to cope with the tension of an internal fight for the world championship between himself and team-mate Oscar Piastri.

The Australian made it two wins from two for McLaren this year with a dominant victory in Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix, leading Norris over the line for the team's first one-two of the season.

Piastri's win moves him 10 points behind Norris in the championship following the Briton's impressive win in the season-opener in Melbourne last weekend, where Piastri finished ninth.

Norris said: "We were free to race. We're both excited - probably nervous and excited at the same time - as I'm sure the team will be. But we're ready."

Norris emphasised his and Piastri's determination to deal with the situation in a manner that is respectful both to each other and to McLaren's overall philosophy of letting the drivers race while putting the team's interests first.

"As much as we work together and we have a good time and enjoy ourselves, we both know we want to try and beat each other and show who's best. And that's inevitable," said Norris.

"So there's no point trying to hide away from that fact or make something of it.

"We're two competitors who both want to win. But we help each other out. I think we both achieved something better this weekend because of that fact. And we'll continue to do that."

After a win and a pole for each of the McLaren drivers in 2025, the car is the class of the field at this early stage of the season.

McLaren are choosing to ignore the claim of Mercedes driver George Russell, who finished third in China, that they could win every race this season. Team principal Andrea Stella described that as "just distractions that we don't take".

For now, Piastri is in fourth place in the championship, with Russell and Red Bull's Max Verstappen in between him and his team-mate.

McLaren are aware of the possibility that the competition between Norris and Piastri is likely to become a title fight this season, whether or not other drivers remain involved.

McLaren's philosophy, in a nutshell, is one of fairness.

The drivers are allowed to race but they must not risk each other's cars or damage the team's interests.

McLaren believe that running a team this way encompasses one key advantage that overrides the potential downsides - the drivers benefit from each other's competitiveness. And they say this was on show in Shanghai.

Piastri said: "We've got different strengths and weaknesses as drivers. This weekend there were certain points where it just worked a bit to my favour, naturally.

"There's been other weekends where it definitely hasn't, and I've had to try and look at things from how Lando's driven and apply them myself."

In the case of China, Norris' issue was that the McLaren was suffering from understeer - a lack of front grip. It's a natural feature of the track, but one that for Norris was exacerbated by the McLaren car's individual behaviour.

No driver likes understeer. But, as Stella put it, it was "more of a penalty for Lando, given his driving style and the way he wants to generate lap time".

"I hate understeer," Norris said. "I just can't drive a car with no front. I can, but I struggle. I cannot maximise the package that way."

The reasons why this was more of a problem for Norris than Piastri are complex, and to do with the technical nuances of how individual F1 drivers manipulate their cars in different kinds of corners, and what they need from the car and tyres to do that - each one's ability differs slightly in these aspects.

Norris' desire for a strong front end, and the McLaren's reluctance to give it to him in China led to him struggling to put his best lap together throughout the two qualifying sessions in Shanghai, one for the sprint and one for the grand prix.

He was fast, but there were too many mistakes, originating in this disconnect between his style and the behaviour and predictability of the car.

It's why he struggled comparatively in the sprint event, which Norris finished eighth, making little progress after dropping from sixth on the grid to ninth with an error on the first lap.

Stella said Norris learned how to adapt his driving and improve by studying what Piastri had been doing on his way to second place behind Lewis Hamilton.

He said: "Having two drivers of this very high level, the information one can take from the other is valid information, is relevant and if you can do a good job of merging the strengths of both, then you elevate your game."

Still, the understeer-based struggles in qualifying ultimately limited Norris' potential.

Norris passed Russell on the first lap from third on the grid to move up to second. But the advantage of free air Piastri had earned by turning his pole into the lead, and the strain following puts on tyres, meant Norris was always likely to have been fighting a losing battle, even before the brake problems in the last 15 laps that put paid to his hopes of making a late charge.

On such small, esoteric, technical differences are races decided - and in the case of the McLaren drivers this year, perhaps world titles. For where Norris struggled in China, Piastri will have occasions when some aspect or other prevents him from competing.

In 2024, significantly more often than not, the balance was in Norris' favour. But Piastri set himself the target over the winter of ironing out the inconsistencies in his performance and ensuring he could compete at every race, not just some of them.

Stella pointed out that his improvement from last year in China - where he was off Norris' pace and finished more than 40 seconds adrift - pointed to the success of that homework.

Oscar Pisatri and Lando Norris at the Chinese GP — Both McLaren drivers have one win each this season [Getty Images]

A tightrope to walk

McLaren's approach to running their team is exactly what most fans of F1 would want - it is a sporting philosophy, based on a fundamental belief in the integrity of competition.

But it's a hard tightrope to walk, on track and off.

When two evenly matched drivers in equal cars are allowed to race, their employers have to trust they are going to behave and not risk the machinery. And even if they don't come to blows, the mere fact of racing can bring competitors into play - as happened to McLaren at the Italian Grand Prix last year.

Stella believes that the drivers share the team's philosophy - and events so far have borne him out. But so far the stakes between them have been relatively small - a race win here and there. Now the sport's biggest prize looks to be at stake.

"When it comes to the internal competition, in reality, we have tried to be ready for that for a long time now," said Stella.

"Like all the things in F1, it would be very arrogant to say: 'Oh, now we are ready, or we were ready.'

"You learn. The scenarios are very complex. They never manifest themselves in the same way. So you just have to continue learning, and like you do on performance, on reliability, on operations, you also do in the way you manage a team.

"For me, what's important is that the fundamental values that everyone brings to support the interest of the team is healthy and is according to our principles.

"We are very lucky with Oscar and Lando because it comes natural and, so far, the fact that we have Oscar and Lando for me is just a way of elevating the performance of the team and the internal competition.

"I'm sure there will be situations, but I'm also sure that they will be reviewed, and we will learn, and we will grow even more the way in which we protect the interest of the team."

As the competitive tension mounts in a championship, the stakes for the drivers increase. The lesson of F1 history is that it can often end in tears - think Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost at McLaren, or Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso at McLaren, or Hamilton and Nico Rosberg at Mercedes.

Whether this becomes a battle as tense as those remains to be seen. But it certainly has the potential to be as close.

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