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Andrea Stella believes Lando Norris is growing "stronger and stronger" as he solidifies his Formula 1 title defense. His comments follow the reigning champion's dominant victory at the Dutch Grand Prix.
The British driver secured his second consecutive win, triumphing magnificently at Zandvoort. He finished over 11 seconds ahead of championship leader Andrea Kimi Antonelli – a result that seemed far from certain after McLaren's performance in Saturday's sprint, where the MCL40 appeared to lack the pace to contend at the front.
The McLaren team managed to turn things around overnight, and the way the 26-year-old driver guided his car to victory left Stella with no doubt about his driver's current performance level.
"Lando is driving and operating at a very high level in an absolute sense, relative to Formula 1... I think he's driving at a world champion level. And as I always say, what I like most about Lando's journey in Formula 1 is that he continues to improve," stated the McLaren boss.
Stella highlighted the start of the 2025 season as a turning point for Norris. Although he won his first title by just two points over Max Verstappen that year, the campaign was far from easy. Norris had to dig deep and implement new approaches to race weekends to overcome early setbacks, such as removing delta time from his steering wheel in qualifying.
According to Stella, this process has carried over and accelerated into the current year. Norris has managed to overcome McLaren's difficult start and has scored 101 of his 159 points in the last six rounds. He is considered one of the standout drivers of the season, despite some reliability misfortunes.
"Especially after the start of the 2025 season, something clicked. It's not just a single click, but a way of working with Lando, for Lando, that we are now also applying on Oscar's side. I think this approach has led to Lando's continuous improvements," Stella said.
Despite trailing Antonelli by 83 points after McLaren's problematic start under the new regulations, Norris is on the right track this season and is now the second favorite for the title according to bookmakers. Stella admitted that the Zandvoort weekend, where McLaren struggled with rear-axle grip in the sprint, was not easy. He also noted that Oscar Piastri's tire difficulties in the second stint of the race remain an unresolved issue.
"It's like I see Lando getting stronger and stronger with each race, because I think Zandvoort was not a weekend where we could take the fight for victory for granted at all, especially after seeing the sprint performance. But we invested in trying to understand where the opportunity was in terms of tire usage and car improvement. I think both drivers improved in that regard, but unfortunately, the question mark remains regarding tire behavior in Oscar's second stint. So I think overall there's a positive trajectory for both, but at the moment, Lando is capable of extracting the maximum performance in qualifying mode. If we go back to the beginning of 2025, that had become a concern that he overcame. And then, when you have conditions where the car is sliding in the race and there's not much grip, I think he's a master in those types of conditions," Stella explained.
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