Stella insists McLaren’s confidence in winning Drivers’ title ‘increased’ after Norris' Mexico City GP victory

McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella believes that "confidence in terms of the championship is increased" after a dominant victory for Lando Norris in the Mexico City Grand Prix.

Norris took a lights-to-flag win in Sunday's 71-lap race at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez circuit, finishing 30s clear of Charles Leclerc and title rival Max Verstappen.

The win, Norris' sixth of the campaign, has moved him back into the lead of the Drivers' Championship for the first time since April, one point clear of team mate Oscar Piastri with Verstappen now 36 points back and with just four Grand Prix weekends remaining.

"The confidence in terms of the championship is increased," said Stella after McLaren's 13th win of the season.

"It's increased because we have proven that we have a car that can win races and in some conditions can dominate races. This is the most important factor to put Lando and Oscar in condition to pursue the Drivers' Championship. I don't think it's about mathematics.

"I think it's about competitiveness. And it was important to confirm this competitiveness. And I think even when it comes to Oscar, even if he lost some points to Verstappen, I think Oscar has got a lot of learning from this weekend.

"And that's sort of an investment that you make to make sure that you are competitive in every condition in the final part of the season. So overall, we definitely, team and drivers, we come out of this weekend encouraged and optimistic for the final part of the season."

Norris' win ended a difficult spell for McLaren, the team having gone the previous four races without a victory while Verstappen had closed a 104-point gap to just 40 ahead of last weekend's race.

Norris himself has chipped away at a 34-point deficit to Piastri since his retirement in Zandvoort, with the Briton putting in a dominant performance across the weekend in Mexico as Piastri could only finish P5.

"I think when we look at Lando's recent years, we have seen a weekend with this level of dominance also in some other venues. Like last year, I think we saw it in Zandvoort," added Stella.

"We saw it in Singapore. So, it's not the first time, I think, that Lando exhibits performances at this level. He was very convincing.

"I think he was just essentially fastest in every single session. He was able to capitalise on the performance and the strength of the car.

"In a way, these special low-grip conditions, they fit perfectly his natural way of extracting lap time, which is almost like opposite to Oscar's characteristics.

"I think it will just strengthen Lando's confidence and it will be important for the final four races. But I think both Lando and Oscar go into the final four races with reasons to be confident.

"And I think the team also goes into the final four races with more understanding of how to extract performance from the car consistently. Because over the last few races before Mexico, at times we have left some performance in the garage."