Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris could be subject to team orders at McLaren at some point this year. It all depends on whether their rivals can stay close.

Based on the results of the Miami Grand Prix alone, that’s unlikely. Race-winner Piastri led a McLaren one-two, with the chasing pack half a minute behind.

Max Verstappen is currently 32 points off the championship lead, a considerable margin but one that could vanish quickly. Red Bull will introduce an upgrade at Imola this weekend in the hope of closing the gap.

Of course, McLaren will try to improve the MCL39 too, but Christian Horner is hopeful that the upcoming rule changes at the Spanish GP hurt the Woking outfit. The FIA are clamping down on the flexibility of front wings, and the feeling is that the leaders have benefitted from this trick more than most.

Perhaps most importantly, they’re up against an all-time great. Verstappen has proven with his pole laps in Japan, Saudi Arabia and Miami that he can outclass his rivals if he’s given even a sniff, so Red Bull don’t necessarily need to be on McLaren’s level for the Dutchman to hang around in the title fight.

Oscar Piastri felt ‘sour’ over McLaren tarnishing first win in Hungary

Zak Brown says McLaren could introduce team orders in the final quarter of the season. That would mean favouring their lead driver to fend off either Verstappen, George Russell or any other challenger.

Last year, the British giants started to prioritise Norris from mid-September onwards, though this wasn’t enough for him to catch Verstappen. Many felt they should have imposed a hierarchy earlier.

One of the few flashpoints came at the Hungarian GP, when Norris resisted McLaren’s instruction to return the lead to Piastri. He eventually did so, but according to ESPN’s Nate Saunders, the Australian was unhappy that his win had been tarnished.

Photo by ATTILA KISBENEDEK/AFP via Getty Images
Engineer Will Joseph implored Norris to comply over the radio, but it was an issue of McLaren’s own making. Driver number four had profited from a defensive undercut that didn’t appear necessary, leapfrogging Piastri in the pit-stop phase.

“I do think that was quite a learning experience for Lando,” Saunders said on the Unlapped podcast. “He spent a lot of the race saying ‘I don’t want to give this win back to Oscar’, and it was made very clear to him ‘if you don’t give this win back up, there will be ramifications, it will hurt your standing within the team’.

“I still do think that the clumsy handling of that did leave a bit of a sour taste in Piastri’s [mouth] when he looked back at that. It’s been referenced that that was maybe something that overshadowed his first win.”

Should Lando Norris hire this F1 legend as his advisor?

McLaren will, of course, hope to stretch out that kind of advantage that makes it an intra-team title fight. That would bring about its own problems, but avoid the most awkward scenarios.

Zak Brown is confident McLaren won’t be the next Mercedes after the animosity of the Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg years. There’s no sign of the Piastri/Norris relationship coming under strain at this stage.

Piastri is regarded as an exceptionally cool character, and it’s hard to recall any instance of impulsive behaviour, the kind that can destabilise a team. While Norris threatened trouble in Hungary, he did eventually relent and later relinquished a Sprint win to Piastri in Qatar to return a favour from Sao Paulo.

With Piastri benefitting from the guidance of former Red Bull driver Mark Webber, Norris has been told to hire Sebastian Vettel as an advisor. He already has a strong relationship with the four-time world champion, who regularly sends him messages.