Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri have both insisted that protecting their teammates was central to McLaren’s use of team orders at the Italian Grand Prix, despite criticism after they were instructed to switch places at Monza. Max Verstappen won the race, but McLaren’s decision to have Piastri return second place to Norris – after the British driver lost the position due to a slow pit stop caused by a faulty wheel gun – prompted controversy given the pair are in a two-horse race for the title. Piastri now leads Norris by 31 points.
Both drivers were explicit in urging that they did not want any member of the squad to feel they had been responsible for having an impact on the result. “We’ve said many, many times now that we don’t want the chance of this success just for this year,” said Piastri. “We’re both at McLaren for a very long time and protecting the people around us that give us this opportunity is a very important thing. It’s easy enough to put yourself second at times like that.”
“The team is priority No 1 and drivers second,” he said. “That’s how it works. It’s only our second year of fighting for wins but the team gives us these opportunities. Without the team, then we’re just fighting for 10th and none of us want that. The spirit of the team is priority and we are below that.” Team principal Andrea Stella concurred that it had been the right thing to do as part of the agreed racing principles at McLaren.
The Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff, however, noted that McLaren’s adherence to such strongly held principles of fairness for their drivers may yet cause them serious headaches later in the season if Norris and Piastri end up toe-to-toe for the title. “There is no right and there is no wrong,” he said. “I’m curious to see how that ends up. You set a precedent that is very difficult to undo. What if the team makes another mistake and it’s not a pit stop, do you switch them around?”
Wolff, who managed the fractious intra-team battle between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg in 2016, described that as “two lions in the den” who were “at each other’s throats”. He added that McLaren’s micro-management of potential scenarios would likely become more complex. “What is a team mistake? What if next time around the car doesn’t start up and you lose a position or whatever, the suspension breaks,” he said. “What do you do then in the next one? So you could have a cascade of events that can be very difficult to manage.”
