Andrea Stella has apologised to McLaren’s drivers after their double disqualification at the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri lost second and fourth place respectively a few hours into the race due to excessive wear on the rear floorboard of their cars. McLaren attempted to bring mitigating factors to the discussion with the stewards, but these were rejected as insufficient and the final decision hit both drivers, but especially Norris, in points.
“During the race, both cars experienced unexpectedly high levels of dolphin behaviour that did not correspond to what we had seen in testing and which led to excessive contact with the ground. “We are investigating the causes of this car’s behaviour, including the effects of accidental damage to both cars, which we discovered after the race and which led to an increase in floor movement,” Stella initially said.
“As the FIA noted, the infringement was not intentional, there was no conscious attempt to circumvent the regulations and mitigating factors were also available,” he added.
It should be noted that the team had asked Norris to switch to lift and coast tactics in the final laps of the race in Las Vegas, which was initially thought to be related to low fuel levels or possibly a fueling issue, but which the driver said after the exclusion was more likely related to the wear of the board.
“We apologize to Lando and Oscar for the loss of points today, at a crucial moment in the title race and after strong performances all weekend. As a team, we also apologize to our partners and fans, whose support means a lot. While this result is extremely disappointing, we remain fully focused on the final two races of the season,” Stella concluded.
Although this development affected Norris to some extent and caused quite a stir, the Briton remains the big favorite for this year’s title and it is not unlikely that he will celebrate it even in Qatar, as he only needs to score two points more than Piastri and Max Verstappen during the three-day sprint to mathematically eliminate them from the race and generally the scenarios that lead to his defeat this year require retirement or an unusually bad result for this year’s Mclaren combined with victories or at least podium results for his rivals.
Piastri was in one sense favored by the exclusion, as this reduced his gap to Norris to 24 points from the 30 he would have had if the race results had stood, but at the same time he saw Verstappen equalize him and the possibility of him finishing the season third is now quite possible.
