McLaren’s team orders switch between Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris at Formula 1’s Italian Grand Prix proved to be one of the most controversial moments of the title battle so far.
The request from the pitwall in the closing stages for Piastri to give up second place to Norris, who had dropped back as the consequence of a slow pitstop, prompted some in-the-moment kickback from the Australian and opened up a huge debate about fairness in the pair's title fight.
It even triggered rival teams to suggest that the Woking-based squad had opened up a Pandora’s box of problems for itself in terms of ensuring that it kept things even when future team mistakes are made.
But following what Piastri has said had been “a lot of discussions” since Monza to review what happened there, some fresh perspective has emerged that explains why McLaren does not feel it has to rip up its racing rules book and start again.
The outside factor
Piastri’s annoyance at the team orders request when it came at Monza was obvious.
He famously said: “We said that a slow pitstop was part of racing, so I don't really get what's changed here.”
What has subsequently emerged in the discussions that Piastri had with McLaren was an understanding of the bigger picture at play for the team in terms of it making the call on the pitwall.
It revolves around that decision to swap not being about the slow pitstop. It was, instead, based on the totality of decisions that had led to outcome - that Piastri had pitted first and then ended up ahead.
Reflecting on his radio message at the time, Piastri said: “I do still stand by it. That is a kind of a decision we've made, that a slow pitstop is a part of racing.
“Obviously in the car at the time the context wasn't there about kind of what else had happened in terms of the pitstop sequencing.
“It was decided that there was another factor for the reasoning, in swapping. So, again, every situation is going to look a bit different.”
This other “factor” is understood to relate to the way that the team had approached the race from a strategy point of view as it battled Max Verstappen for the win.
It had elected to go long on the first stint in the hope that a safety car at the right moment would give it a cheap pitstop where it could hopefully stay ahead of Verstappen.
That hope did not materialise, and the team suddenly needed to be mindful that Charles Leclerc, who had pitted for fresh rubber, was gaining time and getting himself into a position where he could leapfrog Piastri.
So in a bid to counter Leclerc before he became a proper threat, McLaren felt it had to stop both its cars.
Norris was given the option to pit first but told the team that he was happy for Piastri to stop before him as long as he would not be undercut.
It was that sequencing that meant Piastri gained time from the undercut - and then jumped ahead when Norris was delayed in the pits.
From McLaren’s perspective, the switch was not about addressing the slow stop – it was about getting the places back to how they would have been had the cars stopped in a natural order.
This was near identical circumstances to the 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix, when Norris had gained from an undercut to take the lead – and was told to sacrifice the win for Piastri.
What happens next
Piastri made clear in Baku that he was happy with the explanations he had been given about the decision-making process in Baku.
“We've had a lot of discussions, clarified a lot of things, and we know how we're going racing going forward, which is the most important thing,” he said.
“What's happened is done and I'm excited to go racing here.”
While his suggestion of clarifications could be interpreted as there being some revised racing rules, it is understood that nothing has really changed at the team in its approach.
Instead, it has merely reinforced what was in place before.
The slow pit stop stance that Piastri referenced in his Monza radio message remains in place – because the belief agreed by everyone is that a slow stop is indeed part of racing.
This unchanged stance, as Piastri pointed out when asked by The Race, means that in the exact repeat circumstances of Monza, McLaren would again intervene and swap the cars.
“I think in exactly the same scenario, then yes, I would expect it to be the same,” he said.
“But I think the likelihood that you're going to have the exact same scenario is virtually impossible. So, every scenario is going to look different.
“There was, again, another factor that was ultimately deemed to be the reason for the swap. And I respect that decision.
“It's impossible to know, but if the situation was the same, exactly the same, I expect it to be repeated, yes.”
A slow pitstop in normal circumstances, however, would not trigger any external intervention.
In terms of the specifics of what outside factors will and won’t trigger involvement from the pitwall, though, Piastri says there won’t be much revealed by the squad.
“A lot of that is to stay for us because ultimately if we give out that information, then we become very easy targets to pick off, because everyone knows what we're going to do,” he explained. “
“That's all very aligned with all of us, but stays in house.”
Lose-lose situation
Piastri also thinks that another important element to understand about what McLaren did at Monza was that it was ultimately in a lose-lose situation in terms of creating controversy.
Had it chosen to keep the positions as they were after the pitstop, then that too would have caused upset.
Speaking about if he was surprised how big a controversy the incident became, he said: “Obviously, the decision that we made as a team is, there's no right answer to that decision.
“If we had done the opposite thing, you'd have the opposite half of the fans saying that that was wrong and vice versa.
“So, ultimately, there's no kind of correct decision in that. Am I surprised? Not really.
“Obviously it's, I guess, a big moment from the race, I feel like a lot of fans are quite quick to jump on things that are deemed controversial.
“I'm not that surprised, but I do think we have enough freedom to control our own destiny in the championship."
