Why McLaren told Norris not to give Piastri Qatar F1 sprint win

McLaren told Lando Norris several times not to hand Oscar Piastri a payback Qatar Grand Prix sprint race win because it was concerned about the threat from Mercedes’ George Russell.

Norris said after he finished second in the first, shorter contest of the weekend at the Losail circuit that he had been planning to give Piastri the sprint victory if the chance arose as a thank you for the Australian doing likewise to boost his failed championship challenge against Red Bull’s Max Verstappen at Interlagos.

The McLaren pair had qualified first and third for Saturday evening’s race, with Norris having told his race engineer Will Joseph about his plan ahead of the contest.

When asked by Autosport to explain their discussion – Joseph having said twice on Norris’s team radio that McLaren wanted the race to “finish in this order”, with the Briton ahead – Norris said the pre-event feedback from his engineer was also not to enact his plan.

“It wasn’t something that was really discussed [with the wider team],” Norris said. “I didn’t have to do it if I didn’t want to.

“I told my engineer that I would do it. So, he was the main one that probably knew about it. I told him before the race if we have a bit of a gap and we’re first and second then I would try and do it.

“So, he knew and he was telling me not to do it because I think the gap to George [after qualifying, with Russell ending up just 0.063s shy of Norris’s sprint pole] was a bit too fine for their liking.

“But Oscar did his part in trying to help me get closer to Max in the championship and give that opportunity a go.

“I deserved that right to have a chance and that’s how we have a chance as a team when one of us has that opportunity. And I returned the favour today.”

Oscar Piastri, McLaren MCL38, Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

Speaking to Sky Sports F1 after the sprint, McLaren team boss Andrea Stella said Joseph’s radio calls to Norris on the final lap of the race where his charge had already backed off several times to give the chasing Piastri DRS in his bid to hold off the charging Russell behind was “to release the pressure on Lando”.

“By saying on the radio that ‘we are happy to finish in this order’,” Stella added. “But Lando managed to find the opportunity to return the favour.

“And once again, it shows the collaboration, the unity, the cohesion that we have at McLaren, it’s a point of strength and is the foundation to keep staying in this quest for the [constructors’] championship.”

Stella also said “that one point for Oscar was not a factor” in Norris’s thinking, with Piastri now just eight points ahead of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz in the battle for fourth in the 2024 drivers’ standings.

“Lando was definitely willing to return the favour,” Stella continued. “It just goes according to our principles – the fairness, the sportsmanship.

“And we just felt nervous at the pitwall, because Russell was very close. So, once again, I think the drivers, while in the car, sometimes judge the situation more precisely than us on the pitwall.

“And personally, I’m very happy that we had the opportunity to give Oscar the victory that he deserved in Brazil. That’s cohesion, that’s unity. To be honest, I’m very proud of Lando and Oscar.”