Before the breakneck drive through the streets of Baku, Max Verstappen’s biggest world championship rivals have a tough decision to make. With eight races to go before the end of this unexpectedly exciting Formula 1 season, will McLaren issue a team order to make Lando Norris world champion? “We are fighting against Max Verstappen, so I think if we want to support a driver, we have to choose the one who is in the best position,” says team boss Andrea Stella.
So from now on, priority goes to Norris, the world championship runner-up, in the team duel with the bold young star Oscar Piastri, everything for the Brit and the first McLaren driver’s title since Lewis Hamilton in 2008? The traditional team is not making it that easy for itself. “I think the number 1 role works well as a headline, but in reality it is difficult to implement,” explains the Italian Stella.
The former Ferrari engineer is aware of the delicate debates that are constantly being held about the team orders in Formula 1, which have now even been banned. He was there himself at the beginning of the millennium, when everything was subordinated to Michael Schumacher’s triumphs at the Scuderia – including his team-mate Rubens Barrichello. Now Stella himself is faced with the question of how much he wants to bet on Norris in the final stretch of the season.
Norris: Already given away many points
“I have complete confidence in the team,” said Norris before the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Sunday (1 p.m./Sky). He has recently reduced his deficit to defending champion Verstappen in the overall standings to 62 points. Teammate Piastri is 44 points behind Norris, but was able to finish ahead of the Briton in Monza and previously in Hungary.
“I wouldn’t say we’re running out of time, but it’s slowly creeping away,” says Norris. And he adds another gentle hint to the team’s leadership: “When you’re fighting for a championship, you obviously want to optimize every little thing.”
This means that Norris has no more points to give away. Without his weak start and some of the team’s tactical mistakes, he would probably already be very close to the lead in the World Championship. But does that mean that the ambitious Piastri now has to slow down for Norris, unlike in the recent duel on the first lap of Monza? “If you support your team-mate in winning the championship for the team, that’s an enormous boost,” says team boss Stella.
McLaren history: Poison duel between Senna and Prost
The influential McLaren CEO Zak Brown does not yet want to publicly say goodbye to the so-called “papaya rules”, which apply internally based on the team’s color. Hard but fair racing, without the cars touching each other – that was the only requirement for Norris and Piastri so far.
Brown’s first priority is likely to be winning the constructors’ championship, which decides how the racing series’ billions in revenue are distributed. It would be the first team title since 1998. McLaren is only eight points behind Red Bull in this ranking, after Norris and Piastri scored 104 points more than Verstappen and his teammate Sergio Pérez in the last European season.
“We have always relied on having two number one drivers, that was McLaren’s approach. That can sometimes be difficult to manage, as we saw with Senna and Prost,” says Brown. During their time together at McLaren, top stars Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost had taken a poisonous duel to the extreme with a legendary collision in the 1989 World Championship final.
Norris himself knows the best way out of the team order dilemma. “The easiest way is if I just win the races,” says the World Championship runner-up. A maximum of 232 points are still up for grabs. If Norris crosses the finish line first in every Grand Prix and the three remaining sprint races, he would be the next Formula 1 world champion on his own merits.
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