Why Norris' gesture is significant for everyone at McLaren

From day one, Andrea Stella has insisted on team spirit at McLaren. There is no room for egos within the Woking-based team. The team is ultimately central, with a constant focus on how to perform better every time. A real team, in a sport that is also so much about big names and egos.

Getting those big egos to think in team terms has rarely succeeded in F1. After all, the greatest champions are not known for giving away presents. They want to win everything, be it a sprint race or a Grand Prix. Every point counts in a championship spanning 24 Grands Prix.

Yet McLaren wants to be successful in its own way. A way where the team is central and not one specific driver. That became clear for the first time in Hungary, where Norris drove in the lead but had to cede victory to Oscar Piastri. Piastri had lost the lead due to a strategic call by the team, and so it was a 'fair' solution to swap places again. In Hungary, that took quite a few laps before Norris heeded that message.

How the penny dropped for Lando Norris

In Azerbaijan, there was another question for Norris: did he want to hold up Perez for a while in order to help Piastri to victory? This time, no grumbling followed, but Norris carried it out immediately. Perhaps also because he was not in contention for a win.

Oscar Piastri received a similar request in Brazil, when he had to relinquish his leading position to Lando Norris during the sprint race. Although McLaren had said it would not give away wins with team orders, that proved not to be the case for sprint wins. Piastri gave the win as a gift to Norris in his battle for the world title, which was decided in Max Verstappen's favour later that weekend.

Why Norris' gesture is significant

In that respect, the moment in Qatar follows the team's trend of gifting places, but this moment from Lando Norris was more significant. After all, it was not McLaren that had given the order. McLaren even advised Norris to keep his leading position. Norris followed his own plan, however, and gave Piastri the win as a gift, as a thank you for helping him in Sao Paulo.

The moment is significant because McLaren has apparently managed to get drivers, who by nature think mainly of themselves, to now think in the best interests of the team. Whereas in Hungary Norris did not really understand his team and did not really want to give the win as a gift, the roles were now reversed. Norris knew it was in the team's interest to repay Piastri for his help in Brazil. It wasn't necessary, but says enough about the spirit in the team.

What Stella thought of Norris' gesture

In Qatar, GPblog asked Andrea Stella how important this gesture by Norris was for the team. ''The culture that you create and establish in a team can be communicated verbally but is brought to life by example. And when the example is given by the driver who are the most competitive individuals and to some extent selfish by natural programming, when they give these examples of the principles that we try to pursue, like the sportsmanship, the fairness, the returning a favor. An example that cohesion is a fundamental element of teamwork.''

''And we talked before about why we are in the position we are in the championship. I'm a strong believer that this is also because the environment is an environment in which we can build with serenity and when this example is given by the drivers then it's extremely powerful.''

At first glance, the moment in Qatar was somewhat odd, and critics will argue that this is the example that both drivers are not championship material by heeding this. However, you can also turn it around: it is amazing that McLaren have got this culture in and that even the drivers fully adopted it. Whether it is the ideal way to win both world titles, only the future will tell.

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