Should McLaren Prioritize Norris over Piastri in the Championship Fight?
The recent disqualification of McLaren in the Las Vegas Grand Prix, added to the growing threat of Max Verstappen, has reignited a crucial debate within the team: Is it time to prioritize one of their drivers in the fight for the championship? Verstappen’s victory in Las Vegas, although it initially seemed to consolidate his position, brought him dangerously close to McLaren due to the team’s technical infringement. This scenario evokes memories of 2007, when McLaren could have lost the drivers’ championship due to internal competition between its drivers. Lando Norris arrives at the Qatar Grand Prix, a sprint weekend with 33 points at stake, with a 24-point lead over Verstappen and his teammate, Oscar Piastri. Norris could secure the title if he finishes third in the remaining three races: the sprint race and the main race in Qatar, and the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. However, Verstappen, the current champion, represents a considerable challenge. The events in Nevada have raised the question: Is it time to favor Norris over Piastri to secure the title for McLaren in 2025? Some critics suggest that this strategy should have been implemented from the beginning.A Fair Game
Despite Verstappen’s dominance, the current situation is largely due to McLaren’s philosophy of allowing its drivers to compete fairly. McLaren has won 13 races, split between Norris (7) and Piastri (6), while Red Bull has won six, all by Verstappen.
Brown cites the example of 2007, when the battle between Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton allowed Kimi Räikkönen to win the title. He insists that he doesn’t mind if 2025 follows a similar path, as he prefers to avoid team orders and prioritize competition. The lack of harmony between the drivers in 2007 was due to the absence of team orders, while the current harmony is due to the same reason. Alonso, at that time, felt frustrated because the team did not support him over Hamilton, which affected his relationship with Ron Dennis.“I’d rather we say, ‘We did the best we could and our drivers tied on points and the other one beat us by one’ than the alternative, which is to tell one of our drivers right now, when they are one point apart from each other, ‘I know you have the dream of winning the world championship, but we flipped a coin and you can’t do it this year’”
Zak Brown
There’s a stronger argument for McLaren to implement team orders in 2007 than in 2025, as they now have two drivers competing for their first championship, rather than a reigning champion and a promising rookie. Asking one to support the other would have established a hierarchy between them. In 2024, Piastri only received help from Norris when he no longer had mathematical chances of winning the title.
Brown’s philosophy is shared by team principal Andrea Stella, who has seen firsthand how team orders can create a toxic environment, such as at Ferrari during the Michael Schumacher era. Stella, Alonso’s race engineer at Ferrari, witnessed the famous team order at the 2010 German Grand Prix. Stella is determined not to repeat those mistakes at McLaren.Could McLaren Avoid this Scenario?
McLaren could not have foreseen Red Bull’s car improvement at the Italian Grand Prix, nor the technical infringement in Las Vegas. Implementing team orders can be complicated, as demonstrated by McLaren’s approach. If the team had decided to back Piastri after Norris’s failure at the Dutch Grand Prix, they might regret it given the recent decline in the Australian’s performance.If Piastri had been prioritized, it could have strengthened Verstappen’s position. Sometimes, having two different opportunities to win can be the best option. Piastri’s manager, Mark Webber, experienced a similar situation in 2010, when Red Bull did not implement team orders to allow him to beat Sebastian Vettel in Brazil, a decision that turned out to be the correct one, as Vettel won the championship.
Will McLaren Implement Team Orders Now?
It is unlikely that McLaren will ask Piastri to back up Norris. Brown and Stella have not shown signs of deviating from their philosophy, and doing so now would seem like a panic reaction to Verstappen’s position. They must be considering several scenarios, such as a possible collision between Norris and Piastri, or a new failure in Norris’s car. Qatar, although expected to favor McLaren, could force the team to sacrifice performance with a conservative setup to avoid technical issues. With a sprint weekend and two opportunities to score points, the risk of violating regulations is higher. With 33 points at stake in Qatar, there is a possibility that Verstappen will reach the final with the championship lead. Brown is sincere in his desire to win a championship, but it’s human to start questioning that vision when the reality of not winning the drivers’ title is so tempting. There is no world championship trophy for trying to win things the right way.McLaren could repeat the history of Ferrari in 1982 and 1983, when the team won the constructors’ championship but not the drivers’. If Verstappen wins the 2025 drivers’ championship, McLaren, in the opinion of many, would only have themselves to blame.
