McLaren team principal Andrea Stella broke down how the team is approaching Sunday’s race and outlined the strategies that will be employed.
The Woking-based team has a front-row locked out, with Lando Norris in P2 and Oscar Piastri on pole position.
While for the most part, both drivers have proven to avoid any drastic maneuvers or erratic racing, there have been a couple of close calls, and even an instance when one of the drivers crashed.
Norris and Piastri were racing hard in Canada, though the British driver eventually attempted a drastic maneuver to overtake Piastri with a risky lunge.
Both drivers are at the top of the Drivers’ Championship standings, separated by a total of nine points, which will make handling their dynamic at Zandvoort all the more challenging.
Stella, though, says the team has laid out clear runs of engagement.
“Well, the way we go racing at McLaren is based on being respectful of some principles, of some values that we have defined for some time,” the Italian said.
“These principles, rules of engagement, and the conversations that we have, and that ultimately define the way we go racing, they reflect the input from everyone.
“They don’t mean that the drivers are free to do what they want. They are free to race in the sense that we want to give them the opportunity to express their talent, their abilities, their aspirations, but for instance, this should always be made within the boundaries of the team interest coming first.
“This doesn’t mean that in our view and in the drivers’ view they are not free to race and express their talent and their aspirations, but this cannot be done in a way that is completely unregulated, and this is also in their own interest, I would say, not only in the interest of the team.”
The dynamic between the papaya cars will take the spotlight, but before the team makes decisions regarding the pair of drivers, Stella is focused on keeping Max Verstappen, who will start P3, behind both drivers.
“The first thing we have to do in the interest of the team and in the interest of Lando and Oscar is to make sure that we beat Max, who is not very far, he is two tenths away from us.
“Based on the difficulties in overtaking and the fact that there could be also some weather, first of all, we have to make sure that we as a team get the best result for the team with Lando and Oscar finishing possibly in the order that the car performance would say.
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