McLaren drew criticism from some last year for declining to impose team orders on their drivers when doing so could have helped Lando Norris in the championship.
So their decision to impose team orders during the first race of 2025 was a clear departure from what they’ve done before. It came in the form of a ‘hold position’ order given to both drivers at the mid-point of the race.
McLaren told both drivers to hold their positions when Oscar Piastri caught Norris while he was leading just after half-distance. They gave similar messages to both drivers on lap 29.
The pair were closing on Oliver Bearman, the first driver they would put a lap down, and his team mate Esteban Ocon. As the MCL39s closed on the Haas pair McLaren told their drivers the order to hold position was in place while they “transition to the dry” and “clear the backmarkers”.
Once they lapped the two Haas cars Piastri asked if the order was to be lifted, but was told it remained in force. The next car they had to lap was Liam Lawson’s Red Bull, which was around 10 seconds ahead on lap 30.
On the next lap, Piastri made a mistake at turn six. The next time by McLaren told him the ‘hold position’ order had been lifted. He went off again at turn six on that lap, which dropped him well out of DRS range of his team mate.
McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown insisted the pair remained free to race. However he admitted feeling some relief when Piastri ran wide and dropped back from Norris.
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“That was just a ‘hold’ while we were coming up on the lapped traffic just to make sure we can both get through that,” he told Channel 4. “They were free to race.
“Actually, once we cleared it, Oscar I think dropped a wheel [into the gravel], which was kind of a bit of a ‘phew, okay, they’re not that close to each other’. They’re free to race, but I knew I was going to bite my nails the rest of the race.”
Soon afterwards, Piastri’s pursuit of Norris was interrupted when Fernando Alonso crashed, triggering a Safety Car period. His race went awry soon after the restart, when more rain fell and he spun off while chasing Norris.
Piastri’s dissatisfaction with the order at the time was easy to understand, particularly given that it wasn’t lifted as soon as they lapped the Haas drivers. Exactly how McLaren believe they fulfilled the “transition to dry” element of the order wasn’t clear.
Would they have invoked the ‘hold position’ order again had Piastri got back within DRS range of Norris? Did they intend to keep turning it on and off like a light switch as they caught and passed backmarkers?
Later races may reveal more about how McLaren choose to implement this novel spin on team orders. And whether they can pull off the tricky balancing act involved when an F1 team has two competitive drivers and a car quick enough to win the world championship.
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Norris and Piastri’s radio messages
The two drivers were given similar ‘hold position’ messages on lap 29.
| Lap: 28/58 NOR: 1’29.097, PIA: 1’28.629 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lap: 29/58 NOR: 1’28.357, PIA: 1’28.188 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lap: 30/58 NOR: 1’28.032, PIA: 1’28.331 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lap: 31/58 NOR: 1’27.695, PIA: 1’27.916 |
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McLaren told Norris the ‘hold position’ order had been lifted two laps after Piastri was notified. It appears other discussions took priority, likely because the threat from Piastri had visibly diminished.
| Lap: 32/58 NOR: 1’27.800, PIA: 1’29.379 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lap: 33/58 NOR: 1’27.495, PIA: 1’28.226 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lap: 34/58 NOR: 2’02.273, PIA: 2’07.025 |
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