McLaren warned of ‘internal fall-out’ after Oscar Piastri’s first win compromised

Nico Rosberg, citing an example with Lewis Hamilton from his 2016 title-winning year, has urged McLaren to better handle driver instructions, or risk a Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri “fall-out”.

McLaren locked-out the front row in Hungary, Norris ahead of Piastri, but it was Piastri who got the better start and swooped into the lead. His path to victory though was complicated greatly by McLaren at the final round of pit stops.

Nico Rosberg offers McLaren advice to avoid driver bust-up

Pitting Norris before Piastri, the Brit would undercut his team-mate and take over the race lead, though McLaren ordered him to return that P1 spot. Initial refusal followed as Norris began to pull away, though he ultimately obliged and let Piastri through to take his first Grand Prix victory.

With that only McLaren’s second one-two finish over the last 14 years, Rosberg acknowledges that it is a new situation for this McLaren to be the dominant team in a race, but feels this highlighted setting driver instructions as an area of their game that needs urgent attention.

Arguing that they took the shine off Piastri’s first win with this team orders drama, Rosberg said an “internal fall-out” could strike if McLaren do not act.

“First of all, McLaren are still in the learning curve here, because they’ve not been in this situation before [sic] of being so dominant and having two drivers at the front there,” said Rosberg, who served as a Sky F1 pundit in Hungary.

“It’s a new situation. So of course, they need to learn things. And one of the things they do need to learn, clearly, is how to manage the two drivers out there.

“They didn’t do a perfect job there because all this negotiation blah, blah, blah and here and there and change their mind, and the only way to do it there is make a very clear plan, pre-race. How do we race each other? What is the team orders? When, where, how, and then you stick to it and clear instructions and that’s the only way to do it.

“And that’s going to be a learning that they now need to go through very quickly, otherwise, they risk an internal fall-out also between the drivers.

“You can see Lando, especially today, being very unhappy now after the race, and even Oscar, you’ve taken away some of the excitement from his win, you know, with all these discussions.

“So clearly, they need to work on this and make progress.”

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Rosberg, to provide an example, recalled the 2016 Monaco Grand Prix where he yielded position to Mercedes team-mate and at that time fierce rival Lewis Hamilton. Despite both drivers chasing the title, Rosberg said Mercedes had made it “crystal clear” to he and Hamilton pre-race that the faster driver takes priority if the win was under threat.

“There’s the example in my championship year, 2016,” said Rosberg, “I was second in Monaco in the rain. Lewis was third. And the team said I need to let Lewis pass.

“And we are fighting for the championship between the two of us, and I need to let Lewis pass. And I did so, but only because before the race, it was crystal clear how we are fighting each other.

“And it was crystal clear that if there’s a threat for the team to lose the race win – [Daniel] Ricciardo was disappearing in the distance – then we must make sure the faster of the two team drivers is let through to try and fight for the win, so I let Lewis pass.”

McLaren’s one-two saw them take a major chunk out of Red Bull’s Constructors’ Championship lead, the gap now down to 51 points.

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