Max Verstappen ‘good with his tongue’ as McLaren answer ‘not realistic’ title claim

Max Verstappen vs Lando Norris: F1’s latest big rivalry?

Claiming that retaining the title is “not realistic” despite his 62-point lead, Andrea Stella says Max Verstappen is “good with his tongue” but that McLaren need to capitalise more on Red Bull’s troubles.

McLaren recorded a double podium at the Italian Grand Prix to take 22 points out of Red Bull’s lead in the Constructors’ Championship, taking advantage of a poor weekend for the reigning World Champions.

Can McLaren beat Red Bull to the championship double?

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher and Sam Cooper

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri locked out the front row of the grid while the Red Bulls were on the fourth row, Verstappen the faster of the two but still almost seven tenths down on Norris’ P1 time.

McLaren’s advantage continued in the Grand Prix as they looked to be on course for the 1-2 result only for Ferrari to gamble on a one-stop strategy to snatch the victory with Charles Leclerc.

Nonetheless, it was a good points haul for McLaren who brought home 34 to Red Bull’s 12 to slash the deficit to just eight points.

Norris also made inroads into Verstappen’s lead in the Drivers’ Championship, scoring eight points more than the Dutchman to sit 62 behind him.

After what was Red Bull’s lowest-scoring two-car result of the championship, Verstappen declared: “At the moment, both championships are not realistic. We have to turn it around, and it’s not easy to do that very quickly.”

Stella brushed that aside.

Asked about World Champion’s downbeat claim, he told the media including PlanetF1.com: “Max is good, even with his tongue, not just on the track. Obviously he knows that the car he’s driving at the moment seems to provide him with some challenges.”

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The great McLaren team order debate

Lining up on first and second on the grid, the McLaren team-mates were reminded of the “papaya rules” but while that was adhered to as they raced through the Turn 1/2 chicane, Piastri attacked Norris for the lead at the second chicane.

The Briton reckons they would’ve crashed had he braked even a metre later.

McLaren opted against using team orders later in the race to swap their drivers despite that costing Norris an extra three points.

Next time out, though, Stella has hinted team orders could be in play.

“We need to be better at capitalising on the opportunities that Red Bull at the moment seem to offer by not being in the usual possibility of competing for podiums,” he explained.

“So I think it’s definitely an exercise, like we do all the time, to review the specifics, not only of the entire race but even on the first lap.

“I hope that we will be conditioned to these situations frequently in the future as it means that the two McLarens start from the front of the grid.

“But we need to make sure that this is the best for the team and the best for Lando.”

He is, however, wary of taking it to the extremes like Ferrari did in yesteryear when Michael Schumacher was the outright number one driver.

“I think even with Ferrari when there was a successful driver, the successful driver was successful because he was gaining the success on track,” he said.

“I think in the cases in which there was a blatant support for one of the drivers, actually I’m not sure that wasn’t something that actually backfired, right?

“So that’s why I think this thing we need to approach with common sense, need to approach with racing values, and it needs to be approached with the support of both drivers, because if one of the two drivers doesn’t kind of accept that we have a certain way of doing racing, we’re not going to succeed.”

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