Stella: The choice of tactics always complies with our rules.

      McLaren's drivers are almost equal in speed, and the results of yesterday's qualifying in Zandvoort confirmed that once again. In this situation any additional factor can influence the outcome of the Dutch Grand Prix, including, of course, the tactics the team offers Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.

      The question is what McLaren considers the priority, but Andrea Stella does not give a specific answer to that question.

      "Strategy is one of the variables that emerges in the course of the rivalry between Lando and Oscar, and the team can also use tactics," the McLaren boss said ahead of Sunday's race. "When it comes to choosing options from a tactical point of view, we have certain rules. I'm not going to share them, but everything you've seen up to now, all the strategic approaches we've used, have always complied with those rules."

      In Hungary Piastri followed a two-stop strategy, while his teammate completed the distance with a single pit stop, which allowed Norris to win that race, albeit by a minimal margin. At the same time, outside observers questioned why the team did not create more favourable conditions for the driver who was leading at that moment.

      "At the moment we made Oscar's pit stop, we really didn't think that Lando could get ahead of his teammate or Charles Leclerc," Stella explained. "After all, we assumed that all the cars would stop twice. Lando, finding himself in a situation where he had to extend the first stint and see whether it was possible to get away with one pit stop, managed to use his tyre allocation very efficiently. Thanks to that, the one-stop tactic worked.

      "But that's no reason for our drivers to be worried, because everything is done in accordance with our principles… Both of them, including Oscar, understand that there's always a certain amount of variability in races. There's always a chance that different scenarios may play out, and their selection is not always up to us."