Andrea Stella Admits Lando Norris Can Win the Drivers’ Championship

With eight races to go in the 2024 F1 season, Lando Norris is in a good position to claim his maiden world title. After the Italian GP debacle with McLaren coming under fire for their “papaya rules” of engagement for drivers, team principal, Andrea Stella has publicly backed the #4 driver to win the championship this season.

Formu1a.uno quoted Stella as saying, “We must now recognize that not only the Constructors’ Championship is possible but also the Drivers’ Championship, with the performances we have and some of the difficulties we see with Red Bull.”

The Italian engineer’s words hinted towards a recognition of Norris’ title charge with the Briton now 62 points behind Max Verstappen in the standings. Still, the team has not deployed team orders so far to favor Norris — something that could come to bite them back after the race at Monza last week.

Norris started the Italian GP from pole and kept his lead into the first chicane. However, going into the Della Roggia chicane, his teammate, Oscar Piastri swooped around the outside to snatch the lead away, taking away the Briton’s chances of making a major dent in Verstappen’s championship lead.

If Lando Norris wins all 9 remaining races with five fastest laps & all sprints and Max Verstappen finishes P2 in all, Lando becomes world champion by 1 point.

Oh, there’s also Singapore and Baku still coming too. No margin for a stinker. Red Bull could be in a serious dilemma.

— Daniel Valente ️ (@F1GuyDan) August 25, 2024

For the entirety of the race, the Woking team did not use team orders to invert positions. Rather, they allowed their drivers to race under the “papaya rules” of engagement — that imply the drivers to not crash while racing each other. This meant that Norris could only take a small chunk out of Verstappen’s lead. McLaren’s stance was that they do not have a number-one driver in the team. But that could change from the Azerbaijan GP onwards.

Stella explained, “Before Monza, we were a bit cautious but now we can see that McLaren can compete on circuits where last year we were not competitive. We have a very competitive package and this could prove to be a very important weapon in particular for Lando in the race for the championship.”

Whether McLaren end up being a dollar short and a day late in backing Norris for the title is yet to be seen. Red Bull have teased upgrades for the US GP in Austin which could bring the RB20 and Verstappen back in contention for regular podiums and wins. Moreover, Helmut Marko has made it clear that the team is ready to sacrifice the constructors’ title to help Verstappen to his fourth championship.