Stella: Marko’s Norris “weakness” barb worse than Verstappen swearing

F1 title hopeful Norris has previously opened up on mental health challenges

Andrea Stella has criticised Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko for questioning Lando Norris’ mental capacity to challenge for the F1 title and insists his comments are worse than Max Verstappen’s press conference F-bomb in Singapore.

Marko recently claimed in German outlet Motorsport Magazin that Verstappen’s title rival Norris “has some mental weaknesses”.

It is unclear what Marko was referring to but Norris had made a frank admission ahead of last month’s Italian Grand Prix about how nervous he is ahead of a race.

The McLaren driver also spoke back in 2021 about suffering from depression when he first broke into Formula 1.

McLaren chief executive Zak Brown said Marko’s comments set F1 back “10-20 years” after other stars had also spoken out about mental health issues.

Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton opened up on his battle with depression, with his Mercedes boss Toto Wolff discussing his own mental ill health.

Now McLaren team principal Stella has been critical of Marko’s remarks and said they were more “severe” than those of Verstappen, who was hit with a community service punishment after swearing during a press conference at the Singapore Grand Prix last month.

“I think in what Helmut said, there’s a huge, missed opportunity,” Stella told Motorsport.com when asked about Marko’s comments.

“The missed opportunity is that, rather than reinforcing the support to the work that has happened over the last couple of decades, above all the last decade in the openness around talking of mental health issues, they are so important.

“I was actually proud of what F1 have been able to do, what the drivers have been able to do or sportspeople when they talk about that, when Lando has been an ambassador of talking openly that sometimes it’s okay not to be okay and not necessarily this being about him, but the topic.

“Then you hear what Helmut said, and it’s like you destroy in a comment the work of 20 years. Max was addressed for swearing. For me, this is much more severe in terms of what a member of the F1 community has said rather than one bad word in the wrong place.”

Dr. Helmut Marko, Consultant, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Stella highlighted seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher as a driver that would also suffer from confidence issues from time to time – despite dominating the sport for years.

“Having worked with great drivers, I can say each driver was very, very different but all incredibly exceptional,” added Schumacher’s former performance engineer at Ferrari.

“Superb from a driving point of view, but very different from an emotional point of view, view of life, the way they were using their spare time, the way in which they were aggressive in the car. Very different.

“Like, for instance, I’ve already said a few times that Michael appeared to be very self-confident, but actually his confidence came from working with the team. Like himself, sometimes he wasn’t very confident at all.

“The confidence was coming through the work ethic, the work that you put into what you are doing, therefore you know you are doing a good job, you see the result and you gain your confidence – and we are talking about Michael Schumacher, right?”