Andrea Stella cannot see how there could be any debate over Max Verstappen’s penalty in Saudi Arabia, likening his Turn 1 antics to Lando Norris’ move on Lewis Hamilton one race prior in Bahrain.

In that Grand Prix, though, Norris wasn’t penalised as McLaren told him to give the position back to Hamilton.

McLaren team boss: It shouldn’t create any polemic

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

McLaren and Red Bull were once again at odds over a penalty after their drivers fought for the lead of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, pole-sitter Max Verstappen up against Oscar Piastri.

The McLaren driver made the better launch and challenged Verstappen into Turn 1 where, having gained the apex, he had the right to the corner with Verstappen passing him off the track as he cut across the runoff area.

Verstappen, despite claiming Piastri had “pushed” him off, was given a five-second time penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage.

Red Bull’s team principal Christian Horner complained that it was “very harsh” and even arrived at his post-race media briefing with photographs that he said proved that Verstappen was not deserving of a penalty.

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But according to McLaren team boss Stella, it was a clear breach of the regulations, similar to Norris’ move on Hamilton after a Safety Car restart at the previous race in Bahrain.

Norris avoided a penalty that Sunday as McLaren told him to give the position back to the Ferrari driver.

“The situation in corner one was very close, in fairness,” Stella told the media, including PlanetF1.com. “But this is a business of close margin, small margin.

“This time Oscar, thanks to a very good launch off the grid and thanks to positioning the car on the inside slightly ahead of Max, managing to keep the car within the track limits, he gained the rights. And obviously in that situation, you can’t overtake off track.

“So I think the case is very clear.

“And like we did with Lando in Bahrain, you may remember that we realised that we were overtaking Hamilton off the track, and even if kind of Hamilton drove us off the track – but once again, he’s Lewis Hamilton, he knows how to race for us – we just needed to instruct the driver give the position back.

“I think this is a clear case. It shouldn’t create any polemic, really. And if anything, I want to take the opportunity to emphasise how well Oscar is racing, is clean racing, is tough racing and extremely precise.”

Piastri held his nerve and his line against Verstappen in Saudi Arabia, but it was by no means an ‘elbows out’ approach. It was, as Stella put it, tough but fair racing.

“Elbows out is a metaphor,” said the Italian, “which I think works very well when we have to create a narrative, like for an article. And fair enough, I think even myself as a Formula One fan would like to read an article with the elbows out.

“But this kind of narrative when we come to actually programming drivers in terms of their mindset, the approach of the team, that’s not how you look at things.

“You want to race within the regulations. You want to race in a clear way. You want to race maximising what you have available.

“We always say when we discuss our objectives before the race, we want to see the chequered flag. There’s no point in being right and not seeing the chequered flag. So that’s the way we go racing.

“I think we race in a very fair way, and the elbows out, like I said, is a narrative that is not part of our internal conversations, nor I think it should be part of the way the drivers were racing. It’s tough, like I said before, it’s tough racing, but it needs to be fair racing and within the regulations.”

Piastri’s battle with Verstappen wasn’t his only notable one of the evening at the Jeddah Corniche circuit as he also had to take on seven-time World Champion Hamilton.

But while his team-mate Norris engaged in a DRS game with the Ferrari driver, on the advice of Norris’ side of the garage, Piastri avoided that with an epic overtake through Turn 22.

Stella was impressed with the Australian driver, revealing he stayed calm throughout the race as he always knew Piastri had it in hand.

“Today, for me, was one race like Baku. I think in Baku it was very tense, if you remember, with Leclerc,” he said.

“But somehow I was so calm, because he’s one of those in which you know that Oscar is in control, and he knows very well what he’s doing. So personally, I didn’t have any kind of particular exciting moment there.

“He was very confident. He was very in control of the situation. And like I said, I think he also knew that corner one was his, was his chance.

“I also, personally, think that Hamilton is a very, very fair competitor, and I think he knows that if it wasn’t that corner, it would have been the next corner where there was an opportunity. So I don’t think he was braking, you know, to create the most disruption to Oscar’s lap. So I was relatively calm.”

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