Alan Jones calls “bulls**t” on McLaren favoritism talk as Piastri title bid cools
Oscar Piastri’s title fight has taken on a strange hue — his word, not ours. The Australian has gone from setting the early-season pace to searching for answers, and as the swing has tilted towards Lando Norris, the noise around McLaren’s pit wall has risen with it.
Some fans, pointing to a few flashpoints — Monza’s team-order radio chief among them — have suggested McLaren is quietly shading strategy towards Norris. Australian F1 champion Alan Jones has heard enough of that, and he’s not mincing words.
“I think it’s the greatest load of nonsense of all time,” Jones told ABC. “Every single season we come across this bulls**t. Every time. It’s either Mark Webber against [Sebastian] Vettel or it’s somebody [else]. It’s always ‘he’s got a better car’ or ‘he’s getting preferential treatment’, it’s absolute crap.”
Piastri’s lull is undeniable. Since Baku, the momentum has gone missing. Having led the championship after the fifth round, he now trails Norris by 24 points with three to go. In a year where McLaren’s car has spent most Sundays with both drivers in the mix, that sort of swing never arrives quietly.
Throw in Monza — when Piastri was told to let Norris through — and you’ve got fertile ground for conspiracy. Jones isn’t buying it, and he doesn’t think anyone inside a front-running team would either.
“These teams don’t spend absolute fortunes travelling halfway around the world to stymie one car or give preference to the other,” he said. “I can assure you both these cars are getting the same sort of treatment. I know Zak Brown very well, he’s a good racer, and he’d be giving both these blokes equal chances.”
Piastri has been open about the mystery. He’s described his current scrap for pace as “strange” and has hinted at “other factors” that haven’t clicked his way. That’s the more mundane truth in these moments, and the least satisfying for armchair detectives: sometimes a set-up window narrows, sometimes a team-mate finds something, sometimes the car drifts away from what you naturally do behind the wheel. No grand plot, just the brutal algebra of modern F1.
Claire Williams, who knows the temperature inside a dual-leadership garage, framed it the same way: complicated, messy at times, but not malicious.
“It’s not an easy piece of work,” the former Williams deputy team principal told talkSPORT. “At McLaren, in Lando and Oscar, they’ve got two quite relaxed drivers. But equally, they’re both competitive. They both have fought to get to where they are in Formula 1. And both of their dreams will have always been to win a Drivers’ Championship and they will take that fight to each other on the racetrack.
“You’re going to have best-laid plans going into every grand prix… But racing is a bit of a crazy business. You don’t know what’s going to happen when the lights go out.
“McLaren on the pit wall will always have the best intentions and try to do the best thing for their drivers on a Sunday afternoon.”
It’s worth remembering how this usually plays out at the sharp end. Teams with two contenders tend to keep things level until the math says otherwise. Then, if one driver has a clearer shot, the calls get pointed to protect the bigger prize. That’s not “papaya rules,” that’s the rulebook everywhere from Brackley to Milton Keynes. And it’s still a stretch to claim McLaren’s split-second calls have cost Piastri 24 points given the spread of races since Azerbaijan.
Jones, for his part, thinks the commentary says more about fandom than facts. “You get all the rare experts coming out of the woodwork,” he added. “Half of them wouldn’t know one end of a car from another but they’re free to give their advice whether it’s needed or not.”
For Piastri, the fix is less about narratives and more about nailing Fridays and Saturdays so Sundays stop feeling “strange.” The raw speed hasn’t vanished — you don’t lead a championship by accident — but his season now needs a reset, fast. Three rounds don’t offer much runway. They do, however, offer clarity: you either convert, or you watch your team-mate do it.
McLaren, meanwhile, will be desperate to keep both cars pointed forward and the storyline pointed outwards. Two drivers in with a shout is a luxury; it’s also a management puzzle. And as the pressure cranks up, the only conspiracy that counts is the one between a driver, a car, and a lap time.
The rest is just noise.
