Monza boos miss the point: Norris scapegoated in McLaren’s team-orders storm
The Monza podium should’ve been a soft landing for Lando Norris after a clean second place behind a peerless Max Verstappen. Instead, it was a wall of boos. And for what? For being on the right side of a McLaren call the team insists was about principles, not politics.
Calum Nicholas, the former Red Bull mechanic who knows a thing or two about dressing-room dynamics, called it what it felt like: unjust. In a punchy post-race take, he argued both Norris and Oscar Piastri “did absolutely nothing wrong,” and that McLaren’s ‘two No.1s’ philosophy was always going to leave someone wearing the bruises.
The flashpoint came late. With Norris running second and Piastri third, McLaren split the stops on Lap 45 to keep Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari boxed in. Unusually, the chaser, Piastri, came in first. One lap later Norris followed, only to suffer a slow stop that flipped the order. Piastri emerged ahead; a lap or two of awkward radio later, he was told to return the place. He did.
Cue a chorus from the grandstands that missed the nuance entirely.
McLaren boss Andrea Stella was adamant the call wasn’t about favouritism or championship arithmetic. The sequence, he said, was designed to cover Leclerc and keep both cars safe while the pit wall hedged against a late Safety Car or red flag. “Clear intent” was that the stops wouldn’t change track position. The slow stop did. So they put it back.
Then they let them race. Which, given the stage and the stakes, was as fair a compromise as you’ll see in modern F1.
Nicholas, though, doesn’t love the optics—or the precedent. He railed against team orders used to “sanitise” racing and threw out a hand grenade of a thought: “I can’t think of a past world champion that would have obeyed that order in that situation, but I understand why Oscar did.” And that’s the part worth sitting with. Piastri leads the championship; his margin over Norris shrank to 31 points with eight rounds left. He ceded track position and a handful of points because the team asked. You can argue it either way, but you can’t question his buy-in.
Zak Brown, as you’d expect, sold it as unity. The McLaren CEO praised “great teamwork and respect” for delivering P2 and P3—more heavy ammo in a constructors’ fight McLaren is on the verge of locking up for a second straight year. It’s hard to argue with the table: a controlled double podium on a day Verstappen was untouchable is exactly how you win championships.
Still, Monza is Monza. This crowd booed Sebastian Vettel for winning too much; they’ll boo a team order if it smells even faintly like choreography. The nuance—that McLaren intended no swap, that a slow wheel nut turned a tidy plan into a mess—rarely makes it past the grandstand logic test. The guy on the second step got a free overtake back? Boo.
Here’s the real takeaway. McLaren’s ‘two No.1s’ doctrine is admirable but brittle under pressure. You can empower both drivers and still lay down a clearer protocol for pit-order restitution, because these situations always escalate. If pre-stop running order is the golden rule, say it on Thursday and stick to it on Sunday. If racing to the flag is the rule, same deal. The middle ground breeds noise.
None of this should overshadow the work. Norris did the hard yards, then wore a slow stop and a backlash he didn’t create. Piastri drove within his title brief and took the gut punch with minimal fuss. Both walked the line the team drew for them. The outrage is theatre; the points are real.
And there’s the Verstappen factor. Red Bull didn’t need to be in this story because Verstappen wrote his own—again. McLaren’s internal storm just made the rest of the field feel a touch further away.
Baku is next. Tight walls, tricky calls, plenty of ways for the weekend to blow up a neat narrative. Nicholas is right on one more point: there’s a long way to go. McLaren can win this with calm heads and crisp processes. But in a title fight that’s lived on the edge all year, it’s the cleanest lines—the ones drawn before the lights go out—that stop you getting booed after.
