Stella: Lando didn’t want us to fall asleep on the pit wall!

Singapore Grand Prix winner Lando Norris crossed the finish line at the tricky Marina Bay circuit almost 21 seconds ahead of his closest pursuer and rival for the championship title, Max Verstappen. After the race, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella expressed hope that new, no less impressive victories would come before the end of the season.

“I hope we can get a few more wins like this in the remaining six stages of the season,” he promised on Sky Sports. “Lando fully deserves this success, he was very quick from the start of the weekend, although I think he rode his lap quite cautiously in the last qualifying. We thought that in the decisive attempt he could show higher speeds if he attacked at 100 per cent.

Overall, everything came together this weekend. It won’t be easy to repeat the success in the remaining races, but the chances are big and quite big. Furthermore, Oscar Piastri managed to stay ahead of both Mercedes cars today and reach the podium. This is also encouraging.

We gained a lot of points, which increased our lead in the Constructors’ Championship, and the battle in the Individual Championship continues. By the way, Lando hit the barriers a few times during the race, and Zach Brown and I decided that he just wanted us not to fall asleep on the pit wall! (laughs) I want to stress that this was not necessary, because we did not fall asleep at all.

But it must be stressed that this is a very difficult circuit that requires maximum concentration, and in addition it is important to work very carefully with the tyres, because at any moment there is a risk of locking the wheels. Fortunately, Lando’s mistakes did not lead to bad consequences, although they worried us a little. But after that we were able to get back to normal.”

Stella also did not ignore in her conversations with the press the fact that Daniel Ricciardo got a set of soft tires at the end of the race and set the best lap, taking Norris from him. Red Bull and RB did this deliberately to prevent the McLaren driver from earning a bonus point. Although of course it was symbolic in its own way, because it is likely that yesterday’s Singapore Grand Prix was the last in the Australian’s Formula 1 career, and he ended it in a way that everyone remembers.

“I didn’t anticipate this,” admitted the McLaren team boss. – I was a little surprised that RB’s priority in Singapore was to set the fastest lap of the race. However, I value my friendship with Daniel enormously and sympathize with him, so I’m just happy that he was able to add this fastest lap to his list of statistical achievements.

But if we talk about the sporting side of things, I think that such episodes should be approached responsibly – I want it to be like that. I don’t know the facts, but I just saw that the Racing Bulls team decided to do the best lap, and they did it.

Let’s take this for granted for now, but in the future it could become a topic of discussion. We have to make sure that in our sport all teams always act completely independently, both on the circuits and at the grassroots. There is a team competition and there is an individual competition. But this is not a championship in which some coalitions compete.

So this is definitely an issue worth addressing, although I have no arguments in favor of the version where RB decided to do the best lap just to support Red Bull Racing. I just think there is a certain character in the story…”