McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has confirmed Oscar Piastri will be free to fight teammate Lando Norris for the title at the final round in Abu Dhabi despite the looming threat from Max Verstappen.
Piastri slipped to third place in the standings behind Red Bull’s Verstappen at Sunday’s Qatar Grand Prix after McLaren botched its race strategy and threw away the Australian’s chance of winning the race.
Championship leader Norris now has a 12-point gap to Verstappen and a 16-point gap to Piastri with a maximum of 25 points up for grabs in Abu Dhabi.
McLaren has attempted to offer equal opportunities to its drivers throughout the 2025 title campaign, and Stella said Verstappen’s presence in the title battle would not change that approach.
“When it comes to the fact that we have two drivers in the quest for the World Championship, our philosophy and our approach will not change,” he said. “We will leave both Oscar and Lando the possibility to compete and pursue their aspiration.”
Stella went on to reference that the last two times there were more than two drivers in the title fight at the final round — in 2007 and 2010 – the third-place driver ahead of the final race emerged as champion (Kimi Raikkonen in 2007 and Sebastian Vettel in 2010).
“Oscar, from a points point of view, is definitely in condition to win the title,” Stella said. “We have seen before in the history of Formula One that when you have this kind of situation, sometimes it’s the third one that actually wins.
“We have seen it, I think, in 2007, in 2010, and Oscar is fast. I think he deserves to be able to just realise his performance. We will let the drivers be in condition to race each other. What’s important for us is that we are in condition to beat Verstappen with one of our two drivers.”
Stella said he and the drivers would discuss scenarios whereby it may make sense for one driver to help the other during the race.
– How Lando Norris, Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri can win title at Abu Dhabi GP
One such eventuality would be if Verstappen is winning towards the end of the race while Piastri is running third and Norris fourth.
In that instance, Verstappen would beat both McLaren drivers if the positions remained the same, but Norris would be crowned champion if Piastri gave him third place.
Although Stella did not comment on specific scenarios, he said all parties would have to agree beforehand before an order is executed in the race. “I think whatever call we make in terms of using the collaboration of our drivers, we will have to follow some of our fundamental principles, which are foundational to our approach,” Stella said. “We want to be fair to our drivers, we want to race with integrity, and we want to race in a way that doesn’t surprise our drivers.
“So between now and Abu Dhabi, there will be a further conversation with Lando and Oscar. We will confirm our racing approach, but certainly what I can say is that if any of the drivers is in a condition to pursue the quest to win the title, then we will respect this.
“There will be no call which excludes the other driver when the other driver is in a condition to win. So we will see what scenarios will unfold, but definitely what I can say is that there will be conversations and there will be a way of going racing which is united between the team and the drivers like we have always done.”
