Opinion

Was McLaren right to use team orders at F1 Italian GP?

The latter stages of the F1 Italian Grand Prix saw an intervention from McLaren on the finishing positions of its drivers

The 2025 Formula 1 championship fight is very unlike many that have come before.

It is being fought by McLaren duo Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, but even as the season approaches its end, the pair are still playing ‘happy family’ rather than the intra-team bust-ups of years gone by like that of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.

That was seen on Sunday at the Italian Grand Prix when Piastri happily obliged to team orders, meaning he now leads Norris by 31 points rather than 37.

A six-point swing that could be crucial come the Abu Dhabi finale in December, so was McLaren right to interfere in Monza? Our writers have their say…

McLaren needs to free up its drivers - Ed Hardy

“Ha, just because he had a slow stop” is how eventual winner Max Verstappen reacted to the ludicrous McLaren swap late in the Italian Grand Prix. There were seven laps remaining, Norris pitted for soft tyres but trouble with the front-left wheel gun caused a slow stop – allowing Piastri, who boxed the tour before, to jump ahead into second.

McLaren obviously felt obliged to get involved, instructing Piastri to let his title rival through, but it didn’t need to. Where were the team orders in Hungary when Norris stole the win from championship leader Piastri through better strategy?

Lando Norris, McLaren

Photo by: Clive Rose / Getty Images

It’s all a part of racing and just like Hungary was tough luck on Piastri, the same should have applied to Norris at Monza. They’re fighting for an F1 world championship, for goodness' sake! Just let the drivers decide themselves who is best, rather than trying to manage every little manoeuvre like they’re two puppets part of a wider game.

Mistakes happen, and if one starts trying to correct every single error, then it becomes a deep rabbit hole. It would be extremely cruel on Piastri if this was to cost him a maiden title.

But at the same time, is this an example of how Piastri and Norris differ from the multiple world champions on the grid? Verstappen, Hamilton and Fernando Alonso. Would either of those three have happily obliged to the request? Not a chance. And that bullish mentality, added to generational talent, is why they all have several titles.

A driver needs that ruthlessness to go down as one of the greats, and do Piastri or Norris have it? Well, if they do, McLaren is preventing them from showing it and that’s evident in this arguably dull title battle. Poor execution all around.

The right thing is the boring thing - Stuart Codling

It would be a shame indeed if the destination of the world championship was determined not by derring-do on track, but by ‘finger trouble’ on a wheel gun. And that’s one of the few reasons I find myself leaning towards agreeing that McLaren did the right thing in swapping Norris and Piastri late on in Monza.

Australian folk memory will recall a similar moment in the 1998 race in Melbourne, when the McLarens locked out the front row of the grid and Mika Hakkinen led team-mate David Coulthard away from pole position. All looked routine until Hakkinen arrived in the pitlane unexpectedly, having already made a stop.

Mika Hakkinen passes David Coulthard

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Mika reckoned he had heard an instruction to ‘box’ on the radio, but no such call had been made. That gave Coulthard track position and he led until the closing stages of the race, when he lifted off and let Hakkinen past. The team had politely but firmly insisted that he do so, to ‘right’ the ‘wrong’ – not that the mistake had been his in the first place.

In a foreshadowing of the ruinous team orders scandal of Austria 2002, the podium ceremony was a muted and embarrassed affair, and jeers rang out as Hakkinen sheepishly raised his team-mate’s arm on the podium. Australian GP promoter Ron Walker lodged an official complaint with the FIA, emphasising its importance with a word in the ear of his chum Bernie Ecclestone, who held president Mosley’s leash.

I would place Monza 2025 alongside Melbourne 1998 rather than A1-Ring 2002, since this was not a cynically preordained finishing order but a clodhopping attempt to do the right thing.

It was easy for Verstappen to giggle about the scenario on the team radio but, as his engineer Gianpiero Lambiase pointed out, it’s McLaren’s business to ensure fairness in the championship battle. Not a problem with which Red Bull has to wrangle as a one-car team, but tell that to the folk in Milton Keynes who will be going without a constructors’ championship bonus payment this year.

Who’s laughing now?