‘Pitstops are part of racing’
Oscar Piastri eventually bows to McLaren pressure late in the race at Monza but ‘does not get’ team orders
Smiles at the Italian GP for the McLaren crew but Piastri will feel the sting of team orders
The big controversy at Monza was McLaren’s dilemma in asking Oscar Piastri to surrender second position to team-mate Lando Norris after the latter had suffered a delay at his pitstop.
Norris had been the lead McLaren throughout the race up to that point and McLaren, in trying to ensure the team does not interfere in their battle for the world title, sought to remedy the pitstop problem with the left-front wheel in that way.
Piastri – who under instruction had helped Norris out in qualifying the day before in giving him a tow to ensure he graduated from Q2 after messing up his first lap – was displeased. “We said a slow pitstop was part of racing,” he replied to the request, presumably in reference to an internal discussion that had previously been had. “I don’t really get what changed here but if you really want me to do it then I’ll do it.”
McLaren has been here before, of course. In Hungary ’24 it asked Norris to give Piastri back the lead. But the McLaren policy of trying to correct team errors which have disadvantaged one driver over the other was just part of the story. The situation only arose after they pitted the second car (ie: Piastri on this occasion) first. Usually, the lead car gets pitstop preference. The answer to that was that Norris as the lead car preferred to pit after Piastri.
On lap 45, Norris’s engineer Will Joseph had radioed, “We will box this lap onto the soft.” Norris was acutely aware there was a one-lap period of vulnerability in coming in first. If there was a safety car after he’d pitted but before Piastri had, then Piastri would jump ahead.
“Do you want to box the other car first?” he asked. This was his privilege as the lead driver.
After a delay while this was discussed on the McLaren pitwall Joseph eventually came back with, “Yep, we’ll do that. We’ll swap it round. So stay out.”
“Well, only if he doesn’t undercut me,” cautioned a worried Norris. “Otherwise I’ll box first.”
“There will be no undercut,” Joseph reassured him. From 3.7sec back, Piastri was not an undercut threat. But with the 3sec delay in Norris’s stop, there was.