McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has framed the possibility of a 2025 championship battle between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri as an “opportunity” rather than a “problem”.
The Woking-based squad enjoyed a remarkable resurgence in 2024, transforming a season that began with modest points finishes into a triumphant campaign that saw McLaren clinch its first Constructors’ Championship since 1998.
Norris emerged as the closest competitor to Max Verstappen in the Drivers’ Championship, but McLaren’s slow start to its campaign prevented the Briton from taking the title battle down to the wire.
Looking ahead, Stella is hopeful that McLaren’s end-of-season momentum can carry into 2025, putting both Norris and Piastri in contention for the title.
Addressing the potential challenge of managing intra-team tensions, Stella acknowledged the complexities of such a situation but reframed them as a marker of the team’s success.
©McLaren
“We do want to have that kind of problem,” he said, quoted by Formula1.com.
“We worked very hard to have a problem of having a car in condition to win races, and two drivers in condition to win races, and we know that this one in Formula 1 always comes with some complications.”
McLaren’s path to this position wasn’t without its learning moments in 2024.
The team encountered tricky situations involving team orders, including a high-profile incident at the Hungarian Grand Prix where Norris was instructed to let Piastri through.
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However, Stella emphasized that McLaren approached these challenges constructively and would carry that same mindset into 2025.
“These are complications that we have already faced this season to some extent,” he added. “I think we have always approached that in a cohesive way.
"Both drivers were always fully aware that we need to find solutions that, first of all, put the interests of the team and then the interests of the drivers.
“And so far, I think this has been a very positive process. It's a process that we plan to carry over onto next season.
“But before we think about this problem, we need to think… We call it a problem, potentially it's more of an opportunity.”
For McLaren, the priority remains delivering a car capable of sustaining a title challenge from the season’s outset.
Reflecting on 2024, Stella pointed to early-season underperformance as the key reason why the team wasn’t in a position to challenge Verstappen more fiercely.
“Our focus is to make sure that, from a technical point of view, we give Lando and Oscar a car that is in condition to fight for the championship,” Stella affirmed.
“Because had we done this at the start of this season, without having some underperformance in the early races of the season, then we would have been in condition to fight for the drivers’ championship for longer.”
With McLaren’s momentum and the technical strides made in 2024, Stella’s vision for 2025 is ambitious but grounded.
The “complication” of managing two championship contenders within one team would signal that McLaren has truly returned to the top of the sport – and that is a challenge Stella is eager to embrace.
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