McLaren’s Monza team order draws a line through the paddock: smart, fair play to keep a promise—or a nudge toward a Norris coronation? Depends on who you ask.
The flashpoint was straightforward. Running second and third behind Max Verstappen, McLaren released Oscar Piastri for the first stop after assuring Lando Norris—who was ahead on track—that he wouldn’t be undercut. Then came a sticky wheel nut and a 5.9s stop for Norris. He rejoined behind Piastri. Cue the call from the pit wall: give the place back, then you’re free to race.
Piastri bristled on the radio, pointing out that “slow pit stops are part of racing,” before ultimately moving aside. Norris finished P2, Piastri P3, both parked neatly two seconds apart. Verstappen won. The paddock erupted anyway.
Inside Woking, the line is clear. Team boss Andrea Stella called it a matter of principle: restore the pre-stop order that the team had explicitly promised, then let the pair sort themselves out on track. McLaren wanted to unpick its own operational error, not rewrite the race.
Martin Brundle sees it the same way. The former F1 driver turned Sky F1 analyst argued that the only equitable solution was to reset to the status quo ante after a team-induced swing. He likened it to a past example in reverse and suggested that McLaren’s internal cohesion—two drivers pushing hard but rowing in the same direction—has been a foundation of its title push. Don’t crucify either driver for playing the team game, in other words; most outfits would love to manage this level of cooperation at the sharp end.
Bernie Ecclestone is having none of it. The ex-F1 chief told Blick the move wasn’t fair on Piastri, framing it as a punishment for a team mistake and hinting that Woking might prefer a World Champion named Lando Norris. It’s the kind of verdict that lingers in headlines and driver camps alike.
Toto Wolff took the pragmatic view—and parked himself on the fence. The Mercedes boss warned that McLaren has set a precedent that’s hard to walk back. If a slow pit stop merits an orchestrated swap, where does that end? A small procedural fumble? A bad strategy call? There’s no clean, universal answer. The real test, he suggested, will come when the title squeeze tightens later in the year.
Strip out the noise, and the situation hinges on trust. McLaren told Norris he wouldn’t be undercut. An operational hiccup broke that assurance. Restoring the order was less about picking a favorite and more about keeping a promise in real time. Once they did, Norris had the pace to edge clear of DRS range and bank another runner-up finish.
Still, it’s easy to see why Piastri’s camp felt shortchanged. He did nothing wrong, gained on merit in the moment, and then had to stand down. If you’re leading the championship—and Piastri still is, now by 31 points over Norris after Monza—you’re protective of every scrap. That radio reply was the measured version of what every elite driver would say under the helmet.
This is the tightrope McLaren must walk. If the principle is “restore the order when we break a promise,” the team has to apply it relentlessly, even when it hurts. Consistency is the antidote to conspiracy theories. Anything less, and the Ecclestone line about preferring a Norris title will shadow them through every strategy call from here to Abu Dhabi.
On balance, this felt like a grown-up decision in a grown-up title fight. It wasn’t about gifting Norris a position; it was about undoing the team’s own handbrake turn. And let’s be blunt: victorious Sundays in this championship will be defined by moments just like this—split seconds on the gun, quiet conversations about pre-race agreements, and uncomfortable calls that keep both sides of the garage mostly happy.
Mostly.
The upside? McLaren escaped Monza with a clean 2-3, Verstappen did Verstappen things, and the papaya pair lived to scrap another day—still fast, still friendly enough, and still separated by a points gap that can swing on a single bad pit stop. Just don’t expect the debate to cool down. In 2025, the title doesn’t only run through Variante Rettifilo. It runs straight through the intercom.
