Why won’t McLaren use team orders to help Norris win the title? · F1 · RaceFans

McLaren got a kicking from several Formula 1 broadcasters last weekend for failing to impose team orders on their drivers at Monza.

For the second time in four rounds Lando Norris, who is the closest driver to points leader Max Verstappen, finished immediately behind his team mate on the road. Had McLaren swapped their cars around in those two races, Norris’ deficit would now be 52 points instead of 62.

Even presenters on the official F1 channel poured scorn on McLaren, insisting they were not being “smart” by refusing to tell Oscar Piastri to let Norris by. But one should always be prepared to allow for the possibility that the competitors are at least as smart as you are. And almost invariably better informed.

The logic of why McLaren should have swapped their drivers around is simple. After all, no one believes Red Bull would allow Sergio Perez to take points off Verstappen.

But that has rarely, if ever, been a consideration for Red Bull. Out of the 970 racing laps in grands prix so far this season, Perez has only been in front of Verstappen for 25. No other driver who has started more than one race has led their team mate so little, not even the recently-fired Logan Sargeant.

Still, if Red Bull team principal Christian Horner wanted a stronger rival to Verstappen in their second car he wouldn’t have handed Perez a new contract earlier this year. When Horner dispelled suggestions (partly inspired by his own comments) that Perez could be replaced during the summer break, Horner sent a clear message that Red Bull will sacrifice the constructors’ championship before they risk Verstappen’s crown.

So while Verstappen has led Perez for 97% of laps this year, Norris’ advantage over Piastri is just 69%. This is much closer to that seen at other front running teams: Russell has led Hamilton on 64% laps, Leclerc has led Sainz for 63%.

| Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Norris’ superiority over Piastri is nothing like as total as Verstappen’s over Piastri. This matters because once McLaren tell Piastri he is their ‘number two’ they will have crossed the Rubicon. Tell him to let Norris past once, and failing to do again over the rest of the season would become an obvious failure of leadership.

The question then becomes how many times might McLaren have to move Piastri out of the way? And might they end up doing it so frequently they start to look like they’ve backed the wrong horse?

There are 11 races still to come (including sprint events). Piastri has beaten Norris in half of the last four races and he is improving all the time. Piastri also out-qualified Norris in half of the final 10 races last year.

Norris may only be 62 points behind Verstappen, but Piastri is just 44 behind Norris. If McLaren start imposing team orders the way some are telling them to, they may find their intervention fails to tip the balance in the championship fight – but does ensure Norris beats Piastri. ‘He only beat me because you kept telling me to let him past’ is obviously not something the team wants to hear.

Left to their own devices, it’s entirely possible Piastri could out-score Norris by the end of the season:

| Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Contrast that with, for example, the state of play between the Mercedes team mates at the 2018 Russian Grand Prix, when Valtteri Bottas was told to give up victory to Lewis Hamilton:

The situation would be a no-brainer if Norris’ championship credentials were stronger. The fact they aren’t is largely down to him.

He may have won twice but potential victories got away from him in Canada, Spain, Austria, Britain and Hungary. To that we can now add Italy, and he wasted another chance to slash Verstappen’s points lead in Belgium.

Before the summer break Norris said he hadn’t done enough to earn ‘number one’ status. He was right then and it’s still the case.

There is a paradox to the argument that McLaren should impose orders on their drivers because Norris could pick up many more points that way: The fact he has so much to gain shows he isn’t ahead of Piastri regularly enough to begin with. The infamous examples of team orders on occasions like Austria 2002 and Germany 2010 stood out because they were so rare, not because they happened every other weekend.

Piastri is only in his second season of F1 and logically should be further from his ultimate potential than Norris is in his sixth year. How quickly Piastri might reach that potential no one knows. But McLaren are better placed to judge than anyone – particularly pundits whose only stake in this is seeing someone take the championship fight to Verstappen.

| Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

2024 Italian Grand Prix

Browse all 2024 Italian Grand Prix articles