Adam Cooper F1

In the immediate aftermath of the collision between the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in Canada team boss Andrea Stella was quick to suggest that now the inevitable contact had been got out the way everyone would learn and move on from it.

It was a sentiment echoed in Austria on Thursday by Norris, in the wake of some frank discussions over the past 10 days or so about the Briton breaking rule number one – hitting your team mate.

Norris, who took full responsibility within seconds of the incident happening, agrees that valuable lessons have indeed been learned – albeit via a somewhat painful process.

“There’s been a good amount of talks, there’s been good understanding of everything, realising my thoughts and understanding things from my side and explaining that to the team,” he said.

“But I think I made it clear from the immediate moment that I misjudged it, and I took the fault for it.

“Of course, not the most joyful conversations, but conversations that needed to be had, clearly, and obviously from us as a team, because it’s not just about myself, it is how we perform as a team.

“And we all know what rule number one was, and continues and will always be. So some very constructive things, and in the unfortunate way, but a good way. I think many things have come out stronger than I would say they were prior to the weekend.

“Which you might have not expect, but I think is a good outcome. Through an unfortunate circumstance, a lot has been learned, and a lot of a lot of things have turned into being stronger than they were before, which is just a good thing for all of us.”

Expanding on precisely what had been learned Norris made it clear that it was more a case of maintaining trust, and that the actual Papaya Rules that govern how the drivers fight each other have not changed.

“No, everything’s the same,” he said. “But I think one of the first good lessons was just me taking accountability for it, which I did in the moment, me owning up, me taking accountability for what happened, and responsibility for what happened.

“I think sets a good example for us as a team. Not that I’m here to try and set like the best example of how to earn up for mistakes! Also one of the things that over the last few years, we’ve done much, much better at, and I think we’re at the top level now, is how we can work as a team.

“Because it’s part of sport, it’s part of nature and it’s human to make mistakes, is taking responsibility, learning from it, and then coming forward and improving. So yes, I think from that point it was an unfortunate positive.

“But it’s also between the trust and the honesty, I think that Oscar and I have for one another, it’s important that we keep it up.”

Norris has seen how things can go wrong: “We stay strong as a team, because we don’t want to have the downfall that we know many other teams have had in the past. We want to race each other fair and hard and on the limit, and not have a repeat of what happened last time out.

“And that takes both of us, even though Canada was on me. So, from a mentality point of view, from a constructive point of view, I think that’s why it was positive.”

Norris admits that it wasn’t easy to get over the disappointment of Canada.

“It took me a little time, because my team means everything to me,” he said. “The people that I’ve grown up with, the people who have given me my opportunity in F1, and I want to win with McLaren.

“So for me, for what happened in Montreal, to have happened with my teammate, disregarding whether it was with any other car, but it was my teammate, this is probably the most painful part for me, because it’s the last thing that I would ever want to happen between me and my teammate.

“Of course for the action to come for me, so I felt bad, I felt very bad for for the team, and all the people who work in McLaren. So it was a tough couple days.

“But also I think something I got better at is dealing with those moments and speaking to Andrea, my team around me, Zak, and trying to move on as quickly as possible was very important. So coming to this weekend with that in the past, and go again.”

It was inevitable given the high stakes that at some stage this year McLaren team mates Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri would get into a tangle on track. Even team boss Andrea Stella acknowledged recently that it was a matter of when, and not if.

It happened in Montreal on Sunday, but in slightly unusual circumstances in that the drivers weren’t racing each other into a corner with blame to be apportioned, as was the case in the past with controversial famous moments involving Lewis Hamilton/Nico Rosberg or Sebastian Vettel/Mark Webber, for example.

In this instance they’d survived a wheel-to-wheel encounter heading into the final chicane, and it was on the straight that followed that Norris hit the back of Piastri, and paid the price.

He made a simple misjudgement under DRS in the Australian’s slipstream, and immediately told the team on the radio that it was his fault. Later he did the same when he bumped into Piastri in the TV interview pen.

It might not have been the typical sort of team mate conflict that we were expecting, but contact is contact, and the drivers are well aware that it’s a cardinal sin in any team.

Fortunately McLaren is in a good place at the moment, and Stella is a brilliant manager, always able to deal with any situation and find the positives.

When he spoke to the media shortly after the race he’d already found a way to ensure that the incident could be used to ensure that there would be no repeat.

“We said a few times that it wasn’t a matter of if, it was more a matter of when,” said the Italian. “And the when is Canada 2025. We never want to see two McLarens having contact. This is part of our principles. We saw it today.

“This is just a result of miscalculation, a misjudgement from a racing point of view, which obviously should not happen, but at the same time, it’s part of racing, and We did appreciate the fact that Lando immediately owned the situation.

“He raised his hand, he took responsibility for the accident, and he apologised immediately to the team. He came to apologise to me as team principal in order to apologise to the entire team, and it’s important the way we respond and we react to these situations, which ultimately will be a very important learning point.”

He added: “I don’t think it’s a learning from a theoretical point of view, because the principle was already there, but it’s a learning in terms of experiencing how painful these situations can be, and this will only make us stronger in terms of our internal competition and in terms of the way we go racing.”

For Stella Norris’s immediate mea culpa was crucial, and it was also a reflection of the team-focussed environment that he has built.

“I think in order to make an assessment as to the reason of having this sort of misjudgement from a racing point of view, I think we will have to have a few good conversations,” he said.

“Now that we are in the heat of the moment, for me, the most important thing is to see a reaction where people take responsibility of their actions, and we have already seen it.

“And I talked to Oscar as well, and he sort of is cool with the situation, because Lando apologised, they know that a misjudgement in racing can happen.

“But I think obviously in the coming days, thanks to these conversations, we will have to go into what is needed in order to make sure that when we go racing, we preserve the margins that are required.”

Stella downplayed the suggestion that having qualified only seventh Norris was perhaps under extra pressure to find a way by Piastri and get a result.

“From Lando’s point of view, specifically, I’m not sure that there is any reason to do with the fact that he might have struggled a little bit yesterday in qualifying to capitalise on his speed,” he said.

“Speed that he had demonstrated throughout the weekend. Surely, there was a bit of frustration for not having been able to qualify as high as he would have liked. But at the moment, I wouldn’t say that that’s the reason why there was a misjudgement today.

“I think this is too long a shot in terms of correlating these two events, but definitely, there will be good conversations, but they will happen once we are all rested and calm and we have the possibility to take all the learning and discharge what doesn’t have to come with us in the future.”

From the outside at least if there was any glass half full reflection it was the fact that as team McLaren had lost only a fifth place, as opposed to a first and second. However when I put that to him Stella insisted that the relative low cost didn’t make the incident any less serious.

“The fact that the points today, or what we were fighting for, was not a victory – even if you never know in a race until the chequered flag – I think this is just a very, very minor mitigation, let me say.

“We act based on principles, and based on principles, there should be no contact between two McLarens. So from this point of view, if anything, let’s say Lando pays the price, from a championship points point of view, and let me say, luckily, there was no double penalty with the points loss for the other car, which had no responsibility in this contact.”

The key thing now is to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. Stella is adamant that it’s now a case of lessons learned.

“I think in terms of the moving forward and possible repeat or not when we go racing, and there’s many races like nowadays, because 24 races, and sprints, so more and more situations where we can have these kinds of episodes, like I said before.

“I think having experienced, rather than having talked, even if the conversations we had about that, they were certainly strong, impactful and absolved, but having experienced this kind of situation, I think it will make us just more robust as a team, and in terms of each of our two drivers against these situations because the two McLarens racing close to one another, it will happen again.

“But there will have to be better judgment in terms of the distance, because today, in effect, is just a matter of distance between the two cars. There’s nothing like one driver wanted to demonstrate something else.

“If anything, the dangerous situation was more approaching the last chicane when they were side-by-side. And I saw some wisdom there. But somehow after that, and we know that with the DRS, there could be some misjudgements that we have seen in the past as well.”

Stella insists that the drivers will remain free to race, and that it really will be a case of the best man winning – the team won’t make a call.

“The being free to race and the being clear as to how we go racing, is a value of racing,” he said.

“And is a value of racing that we want to try and exercise and respect as much as we can, rather than every time that we have a proximity between the two cars, then having control from the pit wall.

“I think like that, racing may soon become a bit of an artifact, and we want to give Lando and Oscar opportunities to race and opportunities to be at the end of the season in the position that they deserved to be in based on their merit, based on their performance based on the racing quality that they have expressed through the season, rather than being at the end of the season and realise that the points have been controlled more by the team, rather than the quality of their driving.

“This is not necessarily a simple and straight exercise, but we want to try and do it as best as we can. So I don’t foresee that today’s episode will change our approach from this point of view, if anything, it will reinforce, and it will strengthen that the principle we have require more caution by our drivers.

“Because if we say that there should be no contact between the two McLarens, we need to have the margins to make sure that we have no contact, even if, in a DRS situation, the car may get almost a little bit sucked onto the other car, and cause this kind of misjudgement as to the distance.”

The bottom line is that Montreal will ultimately be a perfect demonstration of how with Zak Brown’s help Stella has built a great team, and has proven to be a great boss.

“In the heat of the moment that looks like the worst disaster ever,” said Stella. “But in reality, the strength of being racers, the strength that comes from having a strong culture, is the fact that you will process the episodes you will review, you will take all the positive learning, and you will dismiss anything that doesn’t have to come with us into the way we go racing in the future.

“This is the mindset that we all have at McLaren, and I think this has been proven by the way Lando handled the situation, and definitely that’s going to be the kind of conversation that we will not only have with our drivers, but this is the kind of conversations that we will have with the entire team.

“We lean on our culture, which is very strong, and we use these episodes once they are a little chilled and our mind is colder than it’s in the heat of the moment to become a stronger team with two stronger drivers.”

The balance of power at McLaren swung towards Oscar Piastri again in Montreal as Lando Norris finished qualifying in P7 following a frustrating Q3 session.

With Piastri himself only third behind George Russell and Max Verstappen it was a below par performance by the Woking team, reflecting perhaps the normal ebb and flow of circuit form and the fact that even the championship leaders have to get everything right to stay on top.

Norris had been looking solid earlier in qualifying, taking second spot in Q2, but it came undone in the final part.

“Just a couple of big mistakes,” he said when I asked him about his session. “One, hitting the wall on the last lap in the exit of seven, and first lap I think the last corner. So yeah, just two mistakes that cost me, I guess.

“I think we’ve clearly not been as quick as normal. I think that’s just because of the layout of the track. I think the car is still performing relatively well.

“And I was happy through all the qualifying. Maybe not the car to take pole today, but quick enough to be up there, and then fighting for a top three.”

Norris conceded that Montreal is not an easy track to get right.

“Just very low grip, I think first of all, is one of the bigger things. And therefore the car balance just never comes together as much as what it does in other tracks. So probably just low grip, and some of the kerb riding bumps, which just hurts us it seems more than some others.”

He added: “It’s very easy track to just push one percent too much, and pay the price, and that’s what I did today.”

Norris is running a front suspension update in Canada as part of an ongoing effort to make him feel more comfortable with the car, especially in qualifying trim. He admitted it was hard to properly assess it.

“It’s tough to say, because this track, everything just feels different. So I think it’s something we’ll have to wait and see on the next few races, through Austria and Silverstone and so forth, to understand, and maybe back-to-back test between them both.

“It’s nothing that I felt just yet, but it’s more than when you go to a new track, it’s hard to remember everything perfectly relative to other tracks. So like I said, we just need a bit more time to understand if it’s any better or not.”

Asked if it was expected to be most advantageous in qualifying he said: “I mean, it can be a benefit elsewhere, but it’s not a guarantee that’s going to be a benefit just yet.

“So like I said, this is aimed to maybe give a bit more feeling. It’s not aimed to make us quicker or give the car more performance. So it’s again something that we have to review over time.”

From seventh on the grid all is not lost, as Canada is a race in which stuff usually happens, so there is a chance to make progress with good strategy calls, and possibly a little mayhem ahead.

“I hope so. It’ll make my race a bit more interesting, and the more opportunity that comes my way the better tomorrow.

“I think we can go forwards anyway, but not a lot. It’s not like an easy one-two, like we have been on other tracks. So it’s going to be a bit more difficult. But, yeah, anything that can help us will be very welcome.

“I think a podium is tough, just because we don’t have the pace we’ve had in the last few races. But it could be easily, a one, two or three-stop, depending on how the tyres behave tomorrow.

“So of course, I’ll hope for a bit more to happen. Not as confident as in other places, for sure, but confident we can go forwards. But clearly, I think we don’t have the best car today, so we’ll be a struggle to get to the top.”