Max Verstappen’s dominant performance had most of the focus, but late in the race, it was McLaren who shifted attention their way for reasons they wouldn’t have wanted.
The team chose to pit Oscar Piastri before Lando Norris, playing it safe against a highly unlikely undercut from Charles Leclerc.
Piastri had a quick stop at 1.9 seconds, but Norris’ tyre change the next lap was slower, and the two drivers swapped places on track.
READ MORE: Lewis Hamilton shares his mindset at Ferrari following solid showing at Monza
On the following lap, Piastri let Norris back through on the main straight but raised questions about McLaren’s call over team radio.
Fans voiced their frustration with McLaren’s strategy, and Norris was booed at Monza despite cutting Piastri’s lead in the drivers’ standings to 31 points.
Speaking during Channel 4’s coverage of F1 this week, Coulthard reflected on what he thought as a fan rather than someone within the sport. “I think that if I’m Oscar I’d be disappointed,” said Coulthard.
“You look at him there and his head is down and his eyes are closed. He doesn’t have sunglasses on because he needs them because it isn’t very sunny right now.”
McLaren face criticism over team orders decision at Monza
Coulthard, speaking on Channel 4 after the race, discussed the main point of contention:
“So you can see the wheel gun went on. The wheel gun came off. They weren’t sure.”
“He went back on again. And they get a sequence of lights to tell them that everything has been seated properly. There was just a hesitation, a rare mistake, given that you just highlighted the brilliant stop they did for Oscar. This is just racing.”
“They feel that he’s been disadvantaged because of the team, not because of something that Oscar has done on track, and then they’ve asked him to make the switch.”
“Inside the racer and inside the little boy that grew up a fan of the sport, I want to see racing wheel to wheel. And yes, sometimes engines will blow up. Yes, sometimes you’ll get involved in an incident.”
“This just feels a little bit manipulating, manipulating the result and that feels uncomfortable I have to say.
David Coulthard on Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri’s reactions to Monza team orders
Coulthard was then asked about how the drivers would react to McLaren’s team orders, and that Norris was booed when he went onto the podium by the crowd.
He said: “Well, thankfully, I didn’t hear that, because that’s always uncomfortable. But you summarised it perfectly.
“As a driver, you want to win races or deserve a result on merit. You don’t want to be handed results.
“That’s what we race from a very young age for, and this is what I think sometimes brilliant engineers, brilliant managers, the people that make all of this happen for the drivers, don’t fully understand as much as they’re passionate, and this is their lives.
“They’ve not sat in that race car, they’ve not sweated, they’ve not had the pain, they’ve not had the anguish.
“And I just think that your race engineer has to be your man on the inside, and when your race engineer is effectively saying, Well look you have to do this to the benefit of your teammate. That’s uncomfortable, yeah, that just hurts.”
McLaren team orders designed to prevent Hamilton-Rosberg dynamic
McLaren’s Andrea Stella and Zak Brown will be under no illusions about the fallout from their call at Monza.
There’s been plenty of discussion around McLaren’s ‘papaya rules,’ and while Sunday’s call might have raised questions outside the garage, what matters most is whether everyone inside is aligned. If they are, the noise shouldn’t matter much.
Karun Chandhok believes McLaren are trying to avoid what Mercedes went through in 2016 when managing Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.
But it only takes one moment of defiance from Norris or Piastri for trust to erode quickly.
With the drivers’ title race heading into its final stages, both will be under more pressure than ever to prioritise their own ambitions over the team message.
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