McLaren have broken the golden F1 rule Martin Brundle warned them about with Oscar Piastri

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Oscar Piastri has been subjected to almost all of McLaren’s team orders this season. He could be forgiven for feeling like a number two driver at times.

At the season-opening Australian GP, Piastri was ordered not to attack Norris as the two leaders navigated their way through traffic. The instruction, issued in an unbroadcast radio message, slipped beneath the radar as the home hero spun out.

In both Austria and Hungary, McLaren warned Piastri against attempting overly aggressive manoeuvres as he pursued his teammate. And perhaps most controversially of all, he was ordered to hand second place back to Norris at Monza after the Briton’s slow pit stop.

McLaren saw it as a unique situation because Norris had allowed Piastri to pit first, artificially gaining track position. The championship leader complied with few grumblings, but he made his displeasure known in Singapore when the team refused to intervene after Norris bumped his way past at the start.

Oscar Piastri has been made to feel like a number two driver at McLaren

For a brief period last season, Piastri was the number two to Norris. This was most evident in the Sao Paulo Sprint, where he handed victory to his teammate to aid his pursuit of Max Verstappen.

Norris’ unlikely title bid didn’t come off, and he remedied the situation by handing Piastri a Saturday victory in Qatar.

Speaking almost exactly a year ago, Martin Brundle warned McLaren about Piastri feeling like the second driver.

“Rubens Barrichello and Felipe Massa got put into a number two driver situation that I’m not sure they ever psychologically recovered from,” he said. “You don’t want to do that with Oscar Piastri, he’s got a great future ahead of him. They’re between a rock and a hard place.”

Barrichello and Massa became the bridesmaids of Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso at Ferrari, and neither won a title before they retired. Piastri’s largely excellent 2025 form suggested there was no lasting damage from the brief introduction of a driver hierarchy.

But while McLaren justifiably maintain they have no favourites, Piastri will find recent team decisions more difficult to accept. He’s now ahead of Norris, and the stakes are far higher.

Some F1 paddock insiders think Norris has received preferential treatment, perhaps inadvertently. The risk here is that Piastri develops a lasting inferiority complex, one that puts his relationship with McLaren under strain.

Martin Brundle suspects overlooked McLaren incident had Oscar Piastri ‘seething’

Piastri has been linked with Ferrari in the aftermath of the Singapore GP. It’s possible that these stories are a deliberate attempt to put pressure on McLaren management.

George Russell and Max Verstappen are the clear number one drivers at Mercedes and Red Bull, even if it’s somewhat accidental in the former case. Perhaps Piastri will crave that kind of status if indeed he’s growing frustrated with McLaren’s unique management style.

While the events of Italy and Singapore grabbed the biggest headlines, McLaren raised eyebrows in the paddock by allowing Norris to adopt a one-stop strategy in Hungary. While seen as the inferior strategy at the time, the divergence allowed him to come from behind and beat his teammate.

Martin Brundle reckons Piastri was ‘seething’ after that race, though, to his credit, the 24-year-old has largely maintained a policy of expressing his grievances in private.