Mclaren faces heat from fans over team orders, Stella reacts

"Racing situations are definitely susceptible to different interpretations," Stella said during the team representatives' interaction with the media on Friday. "So we are comfortable with the noise, with the comments. We welcome the comments.

McLaren have been facing criticism on the grounds of too much orchestration i.e., team orders, to control the outcome of a race. Stella, though, defended the decisions that the pitwall came to.

He continued: "From the pit wall, we execute what we agree with our drivers, which ultimately becomes our racing principles and approach.

The Italian team boss then looked back to 2025, Piastri's first race win in F1, when a mistake on McLaren's strategy call, pitting Norris first, prompted Piastri to being undercut by the Briton. This event, too, elicited McLaren's intervention to invert the order.

"This compounded with the slow stop led to a swap. But the situation that we had with the sequence in terms of strategy is the same as Hungary, and we acted consistently with the situation we had in Hungary," Stella concluded.

According to Mercedes team principal McLaren have set a dangerous precedent which could affect the title fight between Piastri and Norris, as former F1 Supremo, Bernie Ecclestone stated McLaren may be backing Norris' championship bid over Piastri's.