Lando Norris declared he, Oscar Piastri and McLaren are “ready” for a world championship fight between the teammates, and the tension that will bring.
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Piastri claimed victory from pole position in Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix as McLaren registered their first one-two of the year to follow up Norris’ win in Melbourne’s season opener the week prior.
The Australian came a disappointing ninth in his home race, but now sits fourth in the driver’s standings, ten points behind his British teammate with Mercedes’ George Russell and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen rounding out the top three.
Piastri’s win sets up the tasty proposition of the teammates fighting one another as well as their rivals for the title.
McLaren have been clear that they are going to let the pair race, and Norris reiterated that point in an interview on Sunday night.
“We were free to race. We’re both excited – probably nervous and excited at the same time – as I’m sure the team will be. But we’re ready,” he said.
“As much as we work together and we have a good time and enjoy ourselves, we both know we want to try and beat each other and show who’s best. And that’s inevitable.
“So there’s no point trying to hide away from that fact or make something of it.
“We’re two competitors who both want to win. But we help each other out. I think we both achieved something better this weekend because of that fact. And we’ll continue to do that.”
As well as the two wins to start the season, McLaren have also claimed pole position in each race, prompting Russell to say that they could win every race this season after he finished third in China behind Piastri and Norris.
McLaren’s team principal Andrea Stella dismissed Russell’s suggestion as “just distractions that we don’t take”.
They remain focused on their philosophy of fairness, allowing the drivers to race but not at risk to one another’s cars or if it could potentially damage team interests.
McLaren believe that philosophy gets the best out of their drivers by being competitive with each other, as was on show in Shanghai.
“We’ve got different strengths and weaknesses as drivers. This weekend there were certain points where it just worked a bit to my favour, naturally,” Piastri said.
“There’s been other weekends where it definitely hasn’t, and I’ve had to try and look at things from how Lando’s driven and apply them myself.”
Piastri bounces back with China triumph | 02:35
This time around it was Norris who had to learn to adapt and improve from Piastri.
He was struggling with understeer – a lack of front grip – as it is a natural feature of the track, but also because of the behaviour of the car.
“I hate understeer,” Norris said. “I just can’t drive a car with no front. I can, but I struggle. I cannot maximise the package that way.”
Stella admitted it was “more of a penalty for Lando, given his driving style and the way he wants to generate lap time”.
But added, “having two drivers of this very high level, the information one can take from the other is valid information, is relevant and if you can do a good job of merging the strengths of both, then you elevate your game”.
Piastri’s emergence has meant that the team has been ready for a power struggle between the pair for some time.
Stella insists that the two drivers are on board with the team’s philosophy, and that McLaren will be able to handle the tricky situation better than other teams have in the past.
“When it comes to the internal competition, in reality, we have tried to be ready for that for a long time now,” Stella said.
“Like all the things in F1, it would be very arrogant to say: ‘Oh, now we are ready, or we were ready.’
“You learn. The scenarios are very complex. They never manifest themselves in the same way. So you just have to continue learning, and like you do on performance, on reliability, on operations, you also do in the way you manage a team.
“For me, what’s important is that the fundamental values that everyone brings to support the interest of the team is healthy and is according to our principles.
“We are very lucky with Oscar and Lando because it comes natural and, so far, the fact that we have Oscar and Lando for me is just a way of elevating the performance of the team and the internal competition.
“I’m sure there will be situations, but I’m also sure that they will be reviewed, and we will learn, and we will grow even more the way in which we protect the interest of the team.”
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