Piastri and Norris, free to fight for the title in Abu Dhabi
The McLaren team boss, Andrea Stella, has confirmed that Oscar Piastri will be free to compete with his teammate, Lando Norris, for the championship in the final race in Abu Dhabi. This is despite the threat posed by Max Verstappen.
Piastri dropped to third place in the standings, behind Verstappen, after McLaren made mistakes in the race strategy at the Qatar Grand Prix.
Norris, championship leader, now has a 12-point lead over Verstappen and 16 over Piastri, with a maximum of 25 points at stake in Abu Dhabi.
McLaren has tried to offer the same opportunities to its drivers throughout the 2025 season, and Stella stated that Verstappen’s presence in the fight for the title will not change that approach.
When it comes to the fact that we have two drivers in the hunt for the World Championship, our philosophy and our approach will not change. We will let Oscar and Lando the possibility to compete and pursue their aspirations.
Andrea Stella
Stella also mentioned that on the last two occasions when there were more than two drivers in the fight for the title in the last race (2007 and 2010), the driver who was in third place before the final race was proclaimed champion (Kimi Raikkonen in 2007 and Sebastian Vettel in 2010).Oscar Piastri podrá luchar contra Lando Norris por el título a pesar de la amenaza de Max Verstappen. Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images“Oscar, from a points perspective, is definitely in a position to win the title,” said Stella. “We’ve seen before in Formula One history that when you have this type of situation, sometimes it’s the third one who actually wins.”
“We have seen, I believe, in 2007, in 2010, and Oscar is fast. I think he deserves to simply perform his performance. We will let the drivers be in a position to compete with each other. The important thing for us is that we are in a position to beat Verstappen with one of our two drivers.”
Stella commented that he and the drivers would discuss scenarios in which it might make sense for one driver to help the other during the race.
One of those possibilities would be if Verstappen were winning towards the end of the race, while Piastri would be in third place and Norris in fourth.
In that case, Verstappen would overtake both McLaren drivers if the positions remained the same, but Norris would be crowned champion if Piastri conceded third place.
Although Stella did not comment on specific scenarios, she said that all parties would have to agree beforehand before an order was executed in the race. “I think any decision we make in terms of using the collaboration of our drivers, we will have to follow some of our fundamental principles, which are fundamental to our approach,” Stella said. “We want to be fair to our drivers, we want to race with integrity and we want to race in a way that does not surprise our drivers.”
“So, between now and Abu Dhabi, there will be another conversation with Lando and Oscar. We will confirm our race approach, but certainly what I can say is that if any of the drivers are in a position to pursue the quest to win the title, then we will respect this.”
“There will be no call that excludes the other driver when the other driver is in a position to win. So we’ll see what scenarios develop, but what I can definitely say is that there will be conversations and there will be a way of racing that is united between the team and the drivers as we have always done.”
