MCLAREN are getting bogged down in more team orders chaos as they chopped and changed once again.
Zak Brown added a fresh twist by saying it would be “crazy” not to implement team orders between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri to ensure they beat Max Verstappen.
In fairness to McLaren, this bonkers element in F1 of two drivers from the same team battling over a single driver’s title, is never easy to navigate.
They are employed by the same company but have two separate dreams of becoming world champions.
McLaren have flip-flopped over their team order stance ahead of Abu Dhabi, first saying the pair were “free to race” before tinkering their plans yesterday.
Norris leads Verstappen by 12 points in the driver’s standings, and an extra four over his McLaren teammate Piastri going into this Sunday’s sizzling decider.
There could be a scenario in the race where Verstappen would be leading, with Piastri’s hopes of winning all but over, but he could help Norris win the title by letting the Brit through.
Norris will be guaranteed a first ever world title if he finishes on the podium in Abu Dhabi, regardless of other results.
Brown was asked whether the team would expect Piastri to move aside for Norris in such a scenario, and he replied: “Yes, of course. We’re realistic. We want to win this Drivers’ Championship.
“We’re coming into the weekend knowing that they both have equal opportunity, even though there’s obviously a point spread.
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“You don’t know how qualifying is going to go, reliability, but if we get into the race and it’s becoming pretty clear that one has a chance and the other doesn’t, we’re going to do what we can to win the Drivers’ Championship. It would be crazy not to.
“We want to win the Drivers’ Championship. So, we’ll kind of see how the race plays out, but we’re not going to not win the championship because we’re trying to protect a third and a fourth or a sixth and a seventh, or however the situation may play out.”
McLaren have worked tirelessly with their sacred ‘Papaya Rules’ since Miami in May last year, when Norris bagged his first ever F1 win to keep things fair, should a title be on the line.
Their most recent use of team orders, and possibly the most controversial, arrived in Monza this season.
Piastri was asked by McLaren to swap back places due to Norris’ slow 5.9 second pit stop.
It left Norris undercut by teammate Piastri and seemed another bitter blow to the Brit’s title hopes a week after he retired in Zandvoort with an oil leak.
But the Aussie was then told to give the place BACK to Norris, which he did so reluctantly.
Piastri’s race engineer at the time said: “This is the same as Hungary last year, I know it’s painful, but you will have five laps remaining from now.”
Norris went on to take second place ahead of Piastri, reducing the Australian’s lead in the championship to 31 points.
McLaren arguably set a precedent for slow pit stops, but team boss Andrea Stella insisted it was that they had pitted Piastri first and not Norris.
It is worth remembering that McLaren also stepped in last season, with Norris asked to let Piastri through to win the Hungarian Grand Prix following the pit stops.
There have been ten situations overall involving team orders with Norris and Piastri over the past two seasons.
The British Grand Prix was a rare sight of a driver ASKING for a team order to be implemented – which was shut down.
Piastri was on track to win the race, but was slapped with a ten second time penalty for driving erratically behind the safety car.
He said on his team radio: “I don’t think the penalty before was very fair. I know it’s a big question, but if you don’t think it was fair either, I think we should swap back and race.”
McLaren waved this away, handing Norris a huge victory at his home race in Silverstone.
Brown labelled two occasions last season when his drivers let each other through, in Sprints races in Sao Paulo and Qatar, following team orders.
He said: “It’s a team sport, right? So, we’re trying to win the constructors’ (title) as a team and we’re trying to win the drivers’ as a team.
“I know that kind of sounds a bit strange, but if one of them can’t win, they want the other to win. And that’s what the team wants. And they are team players and we’ve already seen that last year, right?
“You saw that in the sprint in Brazil and I think it was Qatar. So, I don’t think it’s unusual in any sport for teammates to make sacrifices for each other to give the team what they want.”
This team orders palaver could be completely irrelevant if Norris soars to victory or it could come back to bite McLaren – only time will tell.
