McLaren moves with Piastri and Norris after Monza controversy

McLaren didn’t help Lando Norris at Monza, allowing Oscar Piastri to overtake him on the first lap in an aggressive move that surprised Norris and gave Leclerc wings. Charles overtook him and that was the key for the Ferrari driver to finally win.

In the F1 paddock, few understand a 1-2 start on the grid, with Norris 70 points behind Verstappen with 9 races remaining and Piastri 116McLaren did not tell Piastri that his role was to defend his teammate’s leadership to help him fight for the crown. Norris He had a golden opportunity to take many points from Verstappen, who started 7th in a car with many problems, but in the end, Lando finished 3rd and could only take 8 points from Max , leaving him at 62. If he had won, he could have remained behind 53 or 52 (with a fast lap) with 8 appointments remaining.

After the race, live televised by ‘Sky Sports’, Nico Rosberg told McLaren CEO Zak Brown that “it’s time to give team orders within the notorious ‘Papaya Rules'”the team’s current internal rules by which its drivers are governed, indicating that they should only be respected on the track and not touched: “The ‘papaya rules’ are: compete hard, compete fair and don’t touch each other. And that happened,” defended Brown, who agreed that Piastri overtook Norris, which served to put Leclerc in second “Maybe we’ve exhausted the victory, maybe.”

“It’s something we will discuss next week,” he said, ensuring Piastri would be overtaking “It’s aggressive and it’s a conversation we’re going to have”but he also emphasized that there is “respect.”

And later, he added a twist by comparing the battle between Norris and Piastri to the mythical one between Senna and Prost: “They are both young drivers who want to win, we have always believed in having two number one. That’s always the McLaren way, it can be difficult to handle. We saw it with Senna and Prost”. It’s boring.

McLaren, now, is considering taking steps

Piastri caught Lando Norris by a few points this year. Lando started from pole in Hungary and Oscar snatched the victory from him in a race where the Englishman could have taken some good points from Verstappen. And at Monza, it happened again when everyone thought Oscar would help Norris. Indeed, in Hungary, the team reminded Norris on the radio that he had to give the position back to Piastri because “to win the World Cup you need the Oscar.” However, that help is still conspicuous in its absence and after Monza, with 8 races remaining, McLaren considers Lando to be first, but makes it very clear that both drivers are number 1, which there is no number 2 and that they just do it. because Lando is closer to the general leader. There may be team orders in the remaining races, but it may be too late.

Andrea Stella, Team Principal, of McLaren, explained this to the media.

“We have to be better at taking advantage of the opportunities that Red Bull seem to be offering at the moment by not having the usual opportunity to compete for the podium. “We are fighting against Max Verstappen, so I think if we want to support a driver, we definitely have to choose the one who is in the best position.”he said, indicating that the time had come to put Norris first.

“And also Lando has been doing very well, like pole at Zandvoort, pole here at Monza. In any case, with Lando we have to fix some small things in the race that will help him and help us take advantage of a pole position. like we have here at Monza. “I think if we look at his first lap, as we analyze it together, we will see that there are some things we can do better.”

Stella recognized that this was necessary “Give the championship a chance with Lando”but that doesn’t mean there’s a number 1 on the team.

“I think number one works well as a starter, but I’m not sure it works well in the real world in terms of what it means. Let’s hypothetically say that we concluded that in turn four Lando brake too early and Oscar naturally had a chance to take lead, so what does it mean if you’re number one? Do you change the order of return later? This definition is very difficult to implement in the real world.. It is better to continue working as a team, get the opinion of both drivers and then work together to pursue this goal in both championships, because now it seems that the drivers’ championship is definitely a possibility,” he reasoned, without criticizing Piastri’s overtaking, regarding Lando’s indication that if he had accelerated he might have crashed into the Australian.

“We were a bit cautious even before Monza, but now we see that McLaren can compete on circuits where we didn’t compete last year. c“I think, overall, this is a very competitive package and could be a very valuable weapon for Lando Norris, in particular, in the quest for the title.”

However, Stella said they did not even consider Piastri trading his second place with Norris to give him more World Championship points at the end of the Monza race, once Leclerc had won: “We did not consider that -considering other ways during the race to make sure Lando has his own chances,” he reasoned. And that is very much in agreement with what happened with MD, that McLaren made a second stop with Piastri when he was the leader thinking that his two drivers would fight closer, but they found in the end that they gave victory to a Leclerc who decided to leave. to stop

“But we didn’t think of changing positions because we were still ready to put more pressure on Leclerc and eventually induce him to have a problem on the left front, like a block, in one of the chicanes,” he concluded.

McLaren must wake up. He is wasting a unique opportunity to win the drivers’ title, something they have not achieved since 2008 with Hamilton. And attention, because as shown by the case of Red Bull, in the current F1 it cannot be granted that in 2025 McLaren will have another chance. Mercedes and Ferrari are there and we have to see if Red Bull overcomes its problems.

McLaren should seize its opportunity now by prioritizing Lando Norris with the help of Oscar Piastri. But for one reason or another, they haven’t done it yet. In that sense, it is said that Mark Webber, Piastri’s manager, is not in favor of his student giving up because he knows how much a driver’s image can change when he is seen as the second driver, something he experienced in his flesh at Red Bull with Vettel.

In that sense, the journalist Did Buxton leave doubt in the air if there was any clause in Piastri’s contract preventing him from being number 2matter It would explain the Stella’s need to reiterate that Piastri will not be number 2 even if he can help Lando from now on. But a team must be above and the ego of the drivers. And more, in front of the very obvious occasion.