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McLaren team boss Stella: 'Raised driving conduct of Verstappen to FIA'
- Nicole Mulder
McLaren were not keen on Max Verstappen's driving in his battle with Lando Norris in the Austrian Grand Prix. Team principal Andrea Stella reveals that his team has gone to the FIA to raise the Dutchman's behaviour.
Stella was quite critical of Verstappen, comparing his driving to several actions towards Lewis Hamilton in 2021, which he believes should have been punished more severely - just like the action against Norris. Both Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff and Lewis Hamilton disagreed with that statement.
The McLaren team principal said the paramount issue should be that Norris does not linger over the incident. "I think there are different things. There are two things to consider here. The first one is that Lando, you know, he's the one that needs to drive. He needs to sort of move on. Like if you stayed with your head one week ago, you're not going to do a good job here in Silverstone," Stella told Sky Sports.
McLaren raised driving conduct of Verstappen with FIA
"We see that the car is competitive and we definitely want to capitalise. And so Lando is moving, is looking forward. And we support this point of view. The second consideration is that at no point, this is a personal matter. At no point, there's an attempt from certainly not from us to polarise the views," he explained. Nevertheless, after extensive analysis of data and video footage, Stella finds that McLaren's initial position is supported.
Stella reiterates that there would probably have been nothing wrong if Verstappen had received a warning for dangerous driving. Referring to the infamous 'moving under braking', which Verstappen denied having done. "We have, a lot of respect for Red Bull, for Max, for what they have achieved. But our counterpart is the FIA and the stewards. We just sought clarification and we were actually satisfied with the answer we received from the stewards and the FIA," Stella concluded.
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