Oscar Piastri explains his side of adhering to McLaren team orders in F1 Italian GP in favour of Lando Norris, as Andrea Stella expands on idea behind it.
It was all plain sailing for McLaren after the initial burst in F1 Italian GP at Monza. At the start, Norris lost out to Max Verstappen and had a back and forth which ultimately ended with the Dutchman taking the lead. The Brit then maintained second for most part of the grand prix.
Teammate Piastri had his own back and forth against Charles Leclerc and once he cleared him, the Australian found a rhythm to maintain third – only towards the end of the first stint when he started to close in on Norris. By then, McLaren had decided to switch them onto soft compound.
Usually, it is the lead car in prime position to pit, but after discussions with Norris, they got Piastri to pit first to cover off any threat from Leclerc. They were also waiting out for safety car or red flag, which would have helped them with a cheaper pit stop and a chance to catch Verstappen.
It never came and the opposite happened with a slow stop for Norris. This allowed Piastri take second, but the team opted for team orders. The Australian was asked to give back the place. Despite the arguments, he gave back the place, which he termed as fair after the race.
Even though there was discussions about such scenarios, Piastri felt a bit iffy about certain things. In the end, he settled for it, as both he and Norris highlighted the culture aspect and reiterated that they would continue to adhere the team call, irrespective of the title scenario unless otherwise.
Team boss Stella explained the prior call about undercut and that no swap will take place, which is what they stuck on. The call was for Norris to remain in front of Piastri always. He stressed on the tam culture and philosophy as well, while noting that they will review the slow pit stop.
Slow stop, pass allowed, boos –
Norris: “No. Because it’s what we decided as a team, and it’s what we all agreed upon. I don’t know why [they booed]. I heard them. I hear the cheers louder than the boos, and that’s the most important.”
Piastri: “It’s something that we’ll discuss. We have discussed it before. I think today was a fair request. Lando qualified ahead, was ahead the whole race, and lost that spot through no fault of his own. I said what I had to say on the radio. And once I got the second request, then I’m not going to go against the team. I think there’s a lot of people to protect and a culture to protect outside of just Lando and I. Ultimately that’s a very important thing going forward. Certainly not Max [that I could have challenged today].
“I think with Lando, potentially, but even once I got ahead of Charles, I was struggling a bit. The balance just was not in a great place. I think as the Medium stint went on, we seemed to get stronger and stronger, and I felt like I got stronger and stronger too, which was nice. But ultimately just didn’t quite have the pace. And once you got close to people, unless you had a fair bit more pace than them, it was very tough to stay behind.”
Stella: “I think that the pit stop situation is not only a matter of fairness, it’s a matter of consistency with our principles. And however the championship goes, what’s important is that the championship runs within the principles and the racing values that we have applied and that we have created together with our drivers. The situation whereby we swap the drivers is not only related to the pit stop, and this is a thing useful that I clarified, it’s also related to the fact that we wanted to sequence the pit stop of the two cars by stopping Oscar first and then Lando. And we had a clear intent that this should have not led to a swap of position.
“It was just done because we were covering Leclerc and at the same time we were waiting until the last possible moment to see if there had been a red flag or a safety car. So we pursued the team interest and to capitalize as much as possible on this interest, we needed to go first with Oscar, then with Lando, but the clear intent was that this was not going to deliver a swap of positions. So the fact that we went first with Oscar, compounded by the slow pit stop of Lando, then led to a swap of positions, and we thought it was absolutely the right thing to go back to the situation pre-existing the pit stop and then let the guys race. This is what we did, and this is what we think is in compliance with our principles.”
If close scenario in the championship and few races to go, then swap –
Norris: “Yes. Because that’s what we’ve agreed as a team.
Piastri: “Yep.”
How tackled request –
Piastri: “No, not really. We have had discussions about all kinds of scenarios and when you’re in the same team, when there are things outside a driver’s control, there’s a lot more ways you can rectify things. So it is a discussion we’ve had. I’m sure we’ll review it and discuss more, but it wasn’t a situation that hadn’t been discussed before. I think the radio call kind of says enough. I’m sure we’ll discuss it again.”
Scenario again with other cars around –
Piastri: “I think if it’s within your control and there’s no other cars involved, it’s quite simple. But if there’s other cars involved, we’re not going to give away all of those points to other teams for a mistake. When there’s no cars in between, it’s much easier to rectify it. So to answer your question, if there had been more cars in between, then no, we wouldn’t have swapped back because at that point it does just become very unfortunate.”
Norris: “I think Oscar said it well. Every situation is different, so it’s pretty stupid just to assume that kind of thing and say that’s the precedent you set. We’re not idiots and we have plans for different things. If there were four cars in between me and Oscar, of course he’s not going to let me back past, and I don’t think it’s correct that he let me back past. But in a situation where we weren’t racing, in a situation where we can just be fair, then you’d expect to be fair, as a team. They don’t want to be the reason to upset one driver or another through no fault of their own, you know.
“Today was not my fault. If I came flat-out into my box and I hit all my mechanics out the way, I also don’t expect to get the position back, but today was out of my control. In the end, I don’t want to win this way through getting given positions or anything like that. And the same thing with Oscar—we don’t want to lose or win like that. But we do what we think is correct as a team, no matter what you say or what your opinions are, and we stick to doing it our way.”
If you win constructors’, things to change –
Norris: “No. Not that I know of. Ask Andrea.”
Regret if title lost by this margin –
Piastri: “I wouldn’t regret it, no. I think today it was a fair decision. Lando was ahead the whole race and again it wasn’t through any fault of his own. For me, that’s fine. Ultimately, whoever wins the championship wants to have won it as much as they can through their own performances and things they can control. Today, that wasn’t one of those things.”
Culture, team –
Piastri: “We’ve said many times that we don’t want the chance of success just for this year. There’s a big regulation change next year – we don’t know how competitive we’re going to be, and we don’t know how competitive anyone’s going to be. Ultimately, we want the best chance at winning championships for as long as we’re Formula 1 drivers, and we’re both at McLaren for a very long time. Protecting the people around us that give us this opportunity is a very important thing. It’s easy enough to put yourself second at times like that.
“If we were fighting very closely for the whole race, then it’s slightly different, but Lando was ahead by a few seconds the whole race, so there’s no concern for me with that. Again, we don’t just want this year to fight for a championship; we want it for as long as possible. Protecting the people, that includes the people doing the pit stops. It’s not a very nice feeling, I would imagine. It’s important to protect all the people that we have because that’s what gives us a championship hope for years to come.”
Norris: “That was beautiful. He said it well. I don’t need to add any more. The team is the priority. The team is number one, then the drivers are second. That’s how it works. Normally, when you see teams who don’t have enough respect for the team and the opportunities the team gives, it doesn’t normally last long. You see that with plenty of other teams, whether it’s been Red Bull, Ferrari, or Mercedes. We want to try and be in this position for a longer period of time than what they have been at the top. Still early days – it’s only our second year of fighting for wins. But like Oscar said, the team gives us these opportunities. Without the team, then we’re just fighting for tenth, and none of us want that. So team and the morale, the spirit of the team, is priority, and we’re below that.”
Piastri catching Norris by the end of first stint –
Stella: “One of the reasons is how much you want to push your tyres. I think Verstappen did push the tyres at the start of the stint. He was faster. Like today, Verstappen was faster, that’s why he was able to overtake Lando, and then he was able to open a gap, but he was pushing the tyres. And then I think in this situation, the tyres get a little hot, the wear kicks in, and then you lose some performance at the end of the stint. That’s also why Verstappen pitted before us, and that’s also why Lando had a little bit more degradation than Oscar.
“So Lando was faster at the start, he was trying to minimise the loss to Verstappen, he used the tyres a bit more at the start, and he had a bitter price at the end. It’s like the tyres have a relatively limited budget, and it depends where you use it. In addition to that, today the balance was slightly different to what we had in practice. There was much more rear degradation than front, there wasn’t much graining at all, that’s also why the tyres could go for so long in the race, which was beyond our expected life and performance of the tyres.”
Pit stop issue, future scenario –
Stella: “So we will review the case, we will review also the situation whereby it was a slow pitstop in isolation, we already have our principles in relation to that, we will review our principles in relation to that, and reinforce the direction, if this is in agreement with our drivers. I think in your question we need to first of all agree on what the word review means. Reviewing is the foundation of pursuing excellence. If you think that whatever you do is good and you are not going to have an individual or a team review of anything you do, even the thing you do perfectly, simply you are not going to progress.
“So for me reviewing, it doesn’t mean like ‘oh, certainly we will learn to change it’. Potentially we will review them and we will further align on them and we will confirm them. So the fact that I use this word doesn’t mean that there will be changes. The fact that I use this word means that that’s how we approach things at McLaren and this review which is so essential in engineering, in operation, does apply as well in the way you go racing and does apply in the way you go racing with your drivers.”
Strategy –
Stella: “Well, the line is that had we gone first with Lando, I think even despite the pitstop, if we do the calculations with such a strong undercut power that you have on a new soft, he could have recovered quite a bit of the time lost at the pitstop. So I think here we go, not even in the seconds, we go in the tenths of a second, so for us it was relatively simple to say the intent was that we’re not going to swap positions, and that’s why the slow pitstop compounds with this intent. In terms of the pitstop itself, we will review all the data that we have available and pick up whatever learning we have for the future. Obviously stopping to cover Leclerc would have been the simple solution to the way the race would have unfolded, but it would have limited the result.
“So we wanted to find a way today to pursue a bigger result, like in case of a red flag, that would have been quite strong with the two McLarens leading. And even in terms of a safety car, up until a certain point it would have been strong. And also we wanted to stop late enough to go on softs, because then had there been a late safety car, we would have been on soft with Versapppen on hard. So there were incentives from a racing point of view and from an overall result point of view at the end of the race to stay out. We stayed out up until the point where we needed to sequence the pitstop in a different way compared to the order in which our two drivers were.”
Here’s race start, opening few laps – https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-italian-grand-prix-verstappen-and-norris-fight-for-the-lead-on-the-race-start.1842611136784378480
Here’s slow stop for Lando Norris: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-italian-grand-prix-slow-pit-stop-sees-norris-lose-p2-to-piastri.1842621235003048154
Here’s how F1 Italian GP panned out
