McLaren issue team orders update after Lando Norris forced into No.2 role in Baku

Although Lando Norris “still is” McLaren’s best bet for the World title, Andrea Stella says McLaren’s interest comes “first”, and that’s winning both championships.

From papaya rules to team orders, McLaren threw a U-Turn between Monza and Baku when they changed from saying their drivers could race, but cleanly, to asking Oscar Piastri to support his team-mate’s title tilt.

‘That remains McLaren’s approach’, says Andrea Stella

But within the space of a few days that too was turned on its head when Norris was eliminated from qualifying at the very first hurdle, only 17th fastest, while Piastri put his MCL38 on the front row of the grid for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

It meant Norris, running a long first stint on the hard tyres, was the one asked to protect his team-mate’s position by holding up the Red Bull of Sergio Perez for as long as possible.

Piastri went on to win the Grand Prix ahead of Charles Leclerc while Norris recovered to fourth place and, in doing so, took three points out of Max Verstappen’s lead in the Drivers’ standings .

It is, however, Piastri who has outscored them both in the last two races with 43 points to Norris’ 29 and Verstappen’s 18.

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With that in mind, Stella was asked after the Azerbaijan race whether McLaren would press ahead with plans to favour Norris over his team-mate.

“I said already that we have two number one drivers effectively,” he replied, “and having two number one drivers means that we approach things first of all in the interest of the team.

“The interest of the team is to win the Constructors’ Championship, and yes, is to win also the Drivers’ Championship.

“Lando was in the most favourable position before this race. I think he still is in the most favourable position. So more naturally, we would have supported Lando.

“But I think we have evidence today [Baku] that actually, interestingly, it was Lando supporting Oscar and enabling Oscar’s victory thanks to driving for the team and driving to support his team-mate. So I think that remains our approach.

“We always intended to review after every event, with each driver, with the drivers together, what was going to be the best approach for the next races. We will do it and set the plan for Singapore.”

McLaren insist on ‘principles’, and not ‘rules’

But setting plans race-by-race instead of being “upfront” with the drivers is where McLaren are going wrong according to Red Bull team boss Christian Horner.

“The confusion comes when you are not upfront from the beginning about what your plans are,” he said, adding that Norris should be the team’s clear “ number one driver, or the biggest asset ” but now Piastri is causing “headaches” for them.

But asked if he would set blanket team orders for his McLaren drivers, Stella reiterated it would be a race-by-race plan governed by principles, not rules.

“I think we lead this by principles which is slightly different than rules. I think with the principles, you leave yourself a space to assess every situation but you have your guided beacons to watch what you judge is right,” he said.

“When you define rules, they become quite defining. And then you have to go through 1000 cases and see, like, what is the rule here?

“I think what’s important for me is that we had a good conversation after Monza, because the three of us, Lando, myself and Oscar, we all agreed that entering a chicane P1, P2 and exiting P1, P3 is just not acceptable, because it is infringing our first principle, which is the team interest comes first.

“So we definitely tightened up our conversations in relation to these kind of situations. We knew that if any of the two drivers needed assistance, we would give it.

“And like I said before it’s interesting that now it was the time for Lando to help Oscar. We will now review this race, and we will talk to the drivers. We will define and fine-tune the plan as we go on to the next races.”

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