Andrea Stella, the McLaren team principal, has revealed how the race engineers of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri worked together to get past Lewis Hamilton at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

Piastri claimed McLaren’s fourth victory in five races at the start of the F1 2025 season in Sunday’s race in Jeddah, taking the lead of the World Championship for the first time in his career in the process.

Did Lewis Hamilton deny Lando Norris a podium finish at Saudi Arabian GP?

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

The Australian currently sits 10 points ahead of Norris, the winner of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix last month, in the Drivers’ standings.

Norris’s hopes of adding to his victory tally in Saudi Arabia ended when he crashed in the early stages of Q3, leaving the British driver 10th on Sunday’s grid.

Norris recovered to fourth on race day, finishing just over a second behind Charles Leclerc, who collected Ferrari’s first podium of F1 2025 with third place.

Analysis: Saudi Arabian Grand Prix

👉 Saudi GP conclusions: Hamilton issues diagnosed as Piastri puts Norris in corner

👉 Saudi Arabian GP driver ratings: Piastri reward for elbows out, Hamilton sinks again

Norris’s recovery drive was slowed by a battle with Hamilton, who used DRS to repass the McLaren driver into Turn 1 on consecutive laps having twice been overtaken at the last corner.

The McLaren driver finally made a move stick at the start of Lap 15 having been reminded to “play the game” by his race engineer Will Joseph.

Piastri later made light work of Hamilton with a bold move into the high-speed Turn 22 following his only pit stop of the race.

Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com on Sunday, Stella revealed that Joseph approached Piastri’s race engineer, Tom Stallard, with advice so the race leader would not lose as much time behind Hamilton.

Asked how crucial it was for Piastri to pass Hamilton after his stop, Stella said: “You’ve given me the opportunity here to actually tell you a story.

“The story is that Lando’s race engineer proactively told Oscar’s race engineer, we struggled to pass Lewis because we attempted twice in Corner 27 and he passed us back in Corner 1, so make sure that Oscar knows that and he gives it a go directly in Corner 1.

“I was very proud while on the pit wall to hear that. I didn’t need to prompt anything.

“I was just a spectator to an example of the great team spirit and team work that we have at McLaren, so well done to Will Joseph, well done to Tom Stallard, well done to the team of people.”

Stella went on to praise the work of the McLaren mechanics, led by director of car operations and engineering Charlie Hooper, for repairing Norris’s in the aftermath of his qualifying accident.

He added: “Also, if you allow me, I go slightly off piste in answering your question.

“I also want to praise the the work done by the mechanics, Charlie Hooper, who leads the operation in the garage, [after] yesterday’s accident.

“It wasn’t a hard accident, but actually we needed to change pretty much all the parts in the car except for the chassis and the power unit.

“There’s always a little bit of nervousness when you have to go through so many parts, change, check everything and once again the car was ready to go and this gave the opportunity to Lando to go and score important points.

“So well done to Charlie, well done to everyone involved and all the mechanics in making sure that the car was repaired and ready to go racing.”

More on Lando Norris and McLaren from PlanetF1.com

👉 Lando Norris news

👉 McLaren news

Stella estimated that the time lost by Norris in trying to find a way past Hamilton cost him the chance to take third place from Leclerc in the closing laps.

Nevertheless, he felt Norris’s recovery drive came as a boost to the driver’s “morale” following his mistake in qualifying.

Stella said: “The short version is great recovery by Lando.

“We had long discussions about the starting tyres. We elected to go on the hard tyres because we were hoping that, even if for a brief window, but we could have some possibility to exploit the pace of the car.

“On Friday, we saw that Lando was the fastest driver in terms of long run and race pace simulation, so we wanted to make sure that we were in conditions to exploit this.

“And in a way, this was a good decision by Lando and the strategy guys. It actually unfolded pretty much [as expected]. When you do your simulations on paper, pretty much that was the case [in reality].

“But at the same time, I think for a podium finish today we would have needed not to lose the time with Hamilton.

“Obviously, Hamilton is Lewis Hamilton. He knows very well how to race and for a couple of laps he managed to pass Lando.

“And I think this cost us the time that ultimately means that we could not give it a go at trying to overtake Leclerc.

“At the same time, Leclerc and Ferrari were very fast. Well done to Ferrari on their first podium. Very deserved, in a way, by the race pace that they exhibited especially at the end of the first stint.

“That was quite impressive, because we didn’t think that the medium tyres could behave like that.

“But in a way, he also gave us the confidence that the final stint of Lando would have been strong – and indeed it was strong.

“There was not much degradation. This allowed him to pass Russell.

“But ultimately, I think the time lost with Hamilton, and the fact that Leclerc had such a strong pace meant that we couldn’t recover to the podium.

“Yet, great recovery. Important points for the Championship and also, I think, important for Lando’s morale.

“He shows his race craft is absolutely brilliant. And like he said [over team radio] on the in lap, we just have to polish a little bit the Saturdays and we will have fun.”

Read next: Uncovered: The reason behind Hamilton’s wild pace fluctuations