McLaren address 'worst disaster ever' response

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has addressed the outfit's strategy of moving on from the clash in Canada, an incident he recognises looked like the "worst disaster ever" initially.

Lando Norris struck Oscar Piastri on lap 67 of the Canadian Grand Prix whilst battling for fourth along the start/finish straight, resulting in him crashing into the pit wall. 

It marked the first intra-team clash between Piastri and Norris, increasing the pressure on McLaren to control its drivers in their fight for a first world title. 

Norris immediately accepted full blame for the clash and apologised to the Woking-based outfit and Piastri, with him having also fallen 22 points adrift of his team-mate. 

For McLaren, it represented an incident it had deemed as inevitable on several occasions, with it now needing to respond as soon as possible. 

According to Stella, that has been done through sensible conversations with the entire team, once the fallout from the clash had ended and cool heads returned.

"In every situation, in the heat of the moment that looks like the worst disaster ever," Stella told select media, including RacingNews365. 

"But in reality, the strength of being racers, the strength that comes from having a strong culture, is the fact that you will process the episodes, you will review, you will take all the positive learnings, and you will dismiss anything that doesn't have to come with us into the way we go racing in the future. 

"This is the mindset that we all have in McLaren, and I think this has been proven by the way Lando handled the situation. And definitely that's going to be the kind of conversation that we will not only have with our drivers, but this is the kind of conversations that we will have with the entire team. 

"We lean on our culture, which is very strong, and we use these episodes once they are a little chilled and our mind is, like you say, colder, then it's in the heat of the moment to become a stronger team with two stronger drivers."