Stella: We regret points missing from Austria

The race in Austria saw the first flashpoint between Norris and Max Verstappen as the two collided while racing, with the Briton retiring from car damage, the Dutchman finishing fifth despite getting a five-second penalty.

Since then, the 2024 Formula 1 title protagonists have had other moments, most notably in the US Grand Prix, where Norris was given a five-second time penalty for overtaking off track.

In Mexico, Verstappen was on the receiving side, slapped with two 10s penalties for pushing Norris off track and also gaining an advantage by going outside the track limits.

Stella has maintained that Norris should keep the same racing approach while criticizing Verstappen's on-track tactics but also admitted some regrets in the fight.

Speaking over the Sao Paulo Grand Prix weekend, the Italian was quizzed on whether Norris should do things differently and whether there were regrets.

He responded: "Not at all. When I say keep doing what we are doing, I obviously mean this in a broad sense, but definitely I also mean this in a very specific sense.

"I think we got some learning, for instance, from Austria. We got a little too close. And the points we're missing from Austria, because of having had a proper collision and then being knocked out of the race, are points that we regret.

"We don't really regret many other points in this season, potentially the one in Austin, where we still believe that the final classification isn't correct [Norris lost third due to penalty]," he pointed out.

"But we respect the work of the stewards. We have tried with a right of review to find some correction of that situation that happened in Austin. This didn't happen. We move on.

"So I think from Lando's point of view, that's the way it should be going racing. Lando reflects, also, in the way he goes racing, our own values. We race fair, we race in a correct way, we race in a sportsmanlike way.

"And then ultimately in this kind of close fight, there's a third party that is the stewarding. We trust the stewarding. I think in Mexico this worked very well and we had good racing," Stella concluded.

Norris' title aspiration took a major blow at last weekend's Sao Paulo Grand Prix, where Verstappen won despite an engine penalty and bad qualifying, which meant he started from 17th on the grid, extending his lead over the McLaren driver to 62 points with three races remaining.