Lando Norris breaks Max Verstappen’s trophy, Andrea Stella berates him

In the midst of so many compliments, there is room for a drumstick.

Lando Norris, an excellent second at the Hungarian Grand Prix, was also noted for a curious mishap on the podium. In fact, the Englishman, in the act of uncorking his bottle of champagne, knocked it within inches of Max Verstappen’s trophy, who got off balance and fell. An episode as curious as it was embarrassing, and one that McLaren team principal Andrea Stella also commented on.

The Umbrian engineer had not noticed the scene, which he saw for the first time thanks to a link to ‘Sky Sport’. And right there, after a few seconds of somewhat embarrassed silence, he gave Norris some advice. “This podium picture will be peculiar, with a broken trophy. Yes, he has a lot of energy. But energy has to be controlled, it seems,” Stella glissated.

From McLaren’s team principal, however, most of the compliments obviously came to Norris’ address. “In these last two races we have seen him more clearly, because since he is fighting for the podium he is more visible on TV. For us it’s simply a confirmation about the qualities of the driver, and I’m also happy for him,” Stella explained. “Because in some ways he has a bond with McLaren that he has confirmed by trusting the team even when we were struggling. We are really pleased to repay him with a competitive car.”

There remains the great McLaren growth, about which Stella made no secret: “No doubt Austria and Silverstone had made us realize that the potential of the car was important. However, we also said that it was run in cold conditions and that the fast corners would help us. Up to that point, that was our partial analysis. It certainly wasn’t cold here in Hungary today, and we were also looking for confirmations due to the fact that the corners were slow and medium speed. The confirmations were positive, and that is really encouraging.”

“We still lose time in the slow corners, so along with the many confirmations we reiterate that there is still a lot of work to be done in some areas. The goal for the next races is this. We also had confirmations on the consistency of Piastri, who had already started his important growth at Silverstone,” concluded Stella.