‘The title fight that refuses to get nasty, even when McLaren create their own controversy’

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri’s McLaren rivals just refuse to get nasty in this Formula 1 title fight, even when the team is the subject of an internal conflict of their own.

The Italian Grand Prix created the kind of conflict that is expected to elicit acrimony in many, if not most, F1 cases.

For most of the race, Norris and Piastri ran second and third behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, the Dutchman too fast for Norris, and Norris too fast for Piastri.

However, McLaren made a mistake by rolling the strategy dice and running their cars as long as possible before a pit stop before stopping them in the “wrong” order.

When Norris was normally used in that situation, Piastri was stopped first. The Briton said it was fine as long as it did not lead to Piastri ending up ahead of him. He was assured that it wouldn’t by the team.

But it succeeded. In theory, Norris had a gap more than big enough to stop and re-emerge in front. However, he came out ahead of his team-mate during the pit stop due to a problem.

Piastri was given permission to go back in. The Australian said he didn’t understand but agreed anyway, and they finished Norris-Piastri, the latter’s championship lead down by three points to 31.

This fared significantly worse than expected in earlier intra-team title fights.

A typical response to this scenario would be for a Piastri driver to refuse to let his team-mate past. Or to take a lot longer to do it, while complaining vociferously. After that, criticize the team.

If the race’s winner had been in that circumstance, it is obvious how he would have responded.

“Hah”, Verstappen said when told about the swap. “Just because they had a slow stop,” you ask?

The “racing principles” of McLaren are fundamental to Andrea Stella, the team’s principal, and fairness is at the heart of them.

This circumstance, in Stella’s opinion, was very simple. Norris deserved second place. Contrary to popular belief that the lead driver has priority with strategy, the team decided to stop Piastri first. They provided justifications, and they did so with the sole intention of staying with the current order. The order changed because of a team problem over which neither driver had any influence. The only acceptable response was therefore to reverse the positions.

According to Stella, “The pit stop situation is not only a matter of fairness; it’s also a matter of consistency with our principles.” “And however the championship goes, what’s important is that the championship runs within the principles and the racing values that we have at McLaren, and that we have created together with our drivers.

The fact that we started with Oscar and then had Lando’s slow pit stop, which caused a position swap. And we thought it was absolutely necessary to return to the pre-pit stop situation and then let the guys race.

“This is what we did, and this is what we think is in compliance with our principles”.

During the race, Piastri argued. He claimed that a slow pit stop was a part of racing, so I don’t really understand what happened. But I’ll do it”.

He claimed he concurred with the decision after leaving the car, but that the adrenaline was now starting to run out.

He said, “It’s something we’ll talk about.” “We have discussed it before. A fair request was made today. Lando qualified ahead, held the lead the entire race, and lost that position without any fault.

” I said what I had to say on the radio. And once I receive the second request, I promise not to rebel against the team.

Norris remarked, “I would have had to do it if it had been the other way around.” It proves we’re a fair team, it’s why we’re the best team, just because others haven’t done that doesn’t meant they’re right.

McLaren has handled this kind of situation before.

Piastri was preparing for his maiden victory in Hungary last year, but McLaren pitted Norris ahead of him because they worried Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes would be in danger.

They knew it would end up with Norris in front of Piastri, but figured they would revert the cars, and trusted Norris to do so. However, it took more than 10 laps and a lot of team pleading before Norris accepted when they asked him to switch back.

Hamilton’s threat at the time was almost an invention because it was so far-off. It felt like McLaren had dug a hole for themselves and thrown themselves needlessly into it.

Not indistinguishable from this circumstance.

Stella claimed that Charles Leclerc, a Ferrari driver, had pitted several laps before and was about to recoup his tires when Stella explained that the decision to pit Piastri was made in order to protect him.

But Leclerc was 28.5 seconds behind Piastri when McLaren stopped the Australian, and closing at about 0.5secs a lap. At Monza, there was a total time loss of 25 seconds.

Before they really had to worry about Leclerc, McLaren had at least another three or four laps, and probably more. In other words, they really did not need to make this decision – they could have stopped Norris first and then Piastri and not had this problem at all.

Of course, in that circumstance, he would have lost four seconds if Piastri had stopped second and he would have also had the same wheel-gun issue as Norris, and Leclerc would have threatened him. McLaren wasn’t aware of that until the time.

So the decision does not really make sense, at least not on that reasoning. After the race, Stella stated, “I will go over this with the strategy team.”

The strategy team explained that this was the best course of action because Oscar might have faced a threat. We will review the numbers and we will check whether that was necessary or not. “

Even if Stella did not say it, there is one logical explanation for the order of pit stops.

The equanimity with which McLaren’s drivers handle this particular circumstance and the wider championship conflict is remarkable.

It speaks to their particular characters, but also how much Stella has managed to get the whole McLaren team to buy into his culture.

In just two short years, the team has become constructors’ world champions last year and now the dominant force in Formula One this year thanks to a culture and leadership that have transformed them from low-midfield runners at the start of 2023 to constructors’ world champions just after Stella took over.

Drivers competing in a special circumstance. They are competitive athletes out for personal success. However, they rely on their team to provide the tools needed to accomplish it.

In F1, the strong, powerful opposing forces that typically cause the on- and off-balance tension between team-mates competing for a title are typically what cause the drama and tension.

This happened with Hamilton and Nico Rosberg at Mercedes, Piastri’s manager Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel at Red Bull, Hamilton and Fernando Alonso at McLaren, Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost at McLaren, Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet at Williams, and so on.

Stella’s accomplishments at McLaren have a variety of accomplishments. However, it is undoubtedly one of the most impressive things to control.

Both drivers have bought into this.

We don’t want this year’s success chance, Piastri said. The rules will be significantly changed next year. We don’t know how competitive we’re going to be, and we don’t know how competitive anyone’s going to be.

We want to win championships as long as we’re Formula 1 drivers and both work for McLaren for a very long time, according to the team.

It is crucial to preserve the people who give us this opportunity in the world around us. It’s easy enough to put yourself second at times like that. “

That was beautiful, Norris continued. It was well said by him. I don’t need to add any more. “

There was yet another less well-known and obvious example of this before the race.

The team asked Piastri to tow Norris in the second session during qualifying. At the time, Norris was in danger of being knocked out – which would have meant qualifying out of the top 10 and giving Piastri a massive helping hand in the championship.

Piastri, however, resigned without adversity.

After the title fight reached its climax, Stella was later asked if he would accept it if that kind of thing stopped happening.