McLaren boss Andrea Stella has expressed his bewilderment that attention on missed opportunities has overlooked Lando Norris‘ improvement in Formula 1 in 2024.
Norris’ championship hopes were ended in Las Vegas last weekend as Max Verstappen delivered the result that he needed to clinch the title with two rounds to spare.
McLaren‘s mid-season development into the benchmark team saw Norris emerge as Verstappen’s main rival, but multiple errors have prompted him to come up short.
The Woking-based squad squandered chances to win in Canada and Britain with wrong strategic calls, while Norris’ mistake-prone run in Brazil provided the last blow.
However, Stella believes McLaren even being in a position to challenge Verstappen should be regarded as an achievement based on where it was at the start of 2023.
The Italian behind McLaren’s revival has appeared to concur with Norris’ view that it was Red Bull’s dominant spell earlier in the season that cost Norris a greater shot.
“If we remove the first few races of the season before we deliver the Miami upgrades then we see that we have a trajectory from a Drivers’ Championship point of view that means that Lando could compete with Max,” Stella told media including Motorsport Week.
“This is one of the unthinkable achievements that we have to positively acknowledge at McLaren and when I say unthinkable, unthinkable thinking of where we were only 18 months ago.
“At the same time while being part of this quest I think we have learned many things.
“We have learned as a team, we have learned how to win races, we have also learned that sometimes competing to win races you need to adjust the way you approach racing and definitely this season we have had some situations like Canada, Silverstone in which we could have won the race or Monza and we got important learning as a team.”
McLaren praises Norris progress in 2024
Norris has received vast criticism over his approach to racing Verstappen wheel-to-wheel as contests in both Austria and Austin saw him lose vital ground to his rival.
However, Stella has commended how Norris has drawn on those encounters to improve and questioned the fixation on the Briton’s shortfalls rather than his progress.
“If we look at Lando’s adaptations of competing even wheel to wheel with Max, I think from where he was in Austria to where he was in Austin and in Mexico he learned so quickly.
“I’m very proud of how rapidly Lando is picking up from the situations that he experiences on track and to some extent even off track to become a better and better driver.
“I think with Lando I’m not sure this is acknowledged enough externally. For some reasons there’s more acknowledgement towards what are the missed opportunities rather than recognising that Lando is in an extremely strong trajectory and he was in condition once McLaren offered material that can win races to keep the pace of the stuff.
“And obviously we are working hard with Oscar [Piastri] and we are using even some of the learning with Lando to transfer onto Oscar, because we want to be in condition in 2025 to compete for the Drivers’ Championship with two drivers, Lando and Oscar.”
Stella unconcerned about Norris amid title blow
Norris admitted in the build-up to the Las Vegas weekend that the realisation his championship dream was over this season in Brazil took him a whole week to digest.
Stella, however, harbours no concerns that Norris’ head might dip as McLaren turns attention to preserving its 24-point gap over Ferrari in the Constructors’ standings.
“I don’t think there’s a disappointment today,” Stella expressed.
“Like I’ve said already when expressing my congratulations to Max and Red Bull, I’ve said how proud we are that ultimately Lando was the only driver that could give Max some headache and that since when McLaren gave Lando and Oscar material that can win races, actually Lando kept the same trajectory as Max.
“So I think there’s many more reasons to be proud and to be happy and to be somehow encouraged for the future than disappointment.
“So I think we go into the future with optimism and with a positive feeling.”
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