Red Bull man shares what he didn’t like about McLaren team orders to Oscar Piastri at Sao Paulo Grand Prix

Follow us on Google Discover

Despite achiving pole and winning the Sprint race, McLaren suffered a tough afternoon in the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.

Lando Norris suffered an early setback when he was overtaken by George Russell into the first corner of the race, then latterly he pressured his team into pitting as the wet conditions worsened.

McLaren was adamant that pitting would put Norris in traffic, as it did with Charles Leclerc and Ferrari, but they followed his wishes as Mercedes also pitted George Russell.

This turned out to be a mistake for both as the Safety Car was deployed for the rain, then a red flag came out after Franco Colapinto crashed on the start/finish straight. This enabled the top three, Max Verstappen, Esteban Ocon, and Pierre Gasly to change their tyres without losing time in the pits.

With Norris restarting the race in P5, he made another error at the first corner and skated off track, dropping him down behind teammate Oscar Piastri in P7. McLaren made swift work to swap the two cars with team orders, knowing Norris was the quicker out of the pair.

It was the second time that McLaren employed team orders over the weekend, having also told Piastri to move out of the way to let Norris win the Sprint race on Saturday. Red Bull simulator driver, Rudy Van Buren, did not agree with how McLaren executed its team orders when speaking on the RacingNews365 NL podcast.

Rudy Van Buren disagrees with McLaren team orders against Oscar Piastri

Piastri had picked up a 10-second time penalty for an incident with Liam Lawson earlier in the race and was unable to serve it during a pit stop.

The Australian was seen apologising to Lawson in the pit lane during the red flag, effectively admitting he was at fault for the collision that tipped the Visa CashApp RB driver into a spin at the first corner. McLaren knew this and decided to swap Piastri and Norris when they were close on track, to avoid any time loss.

During the Sprint race, Norris had been unable to get close to Piastri and was told at the last minute to swap positions before a Virtual Safety Car was deployed for Nico Hulkenberg’s stricken Haas.

Van Buren felt the team did not execute the team order well after Norris had already signalled his frustration over the growing prospect of a VSC or full Safety Car.

“There was a lot of pressure on Norris on Saturday, they did what they had to do. I don’t entirely agree with the way they did it but in the end, they got the point,” said Van Buren.

Lando Norris was ‘not prepared’ after making Sao Paulo GP error

Norris’ race was compromised before it even began when he pulled away from his grid slot when Race Control elected to abandon the start for Lance Stroll’s stricken Aston Martin.

The stewards investigated Norris for a start infringement along with George Russell and both RB drivers, and subsequently handed him a driving reprimand and a €5,000 (£4,200) fine for the offence.

READ MORE: McLaren driver Lando Norris’ life outside F1 from parents to celebration

Former F1 mechanic Marc Priestley believes Norris simply was ‘not prepared’ when the call was made and unfamiliar with the regulations.

Carlos Sainz had committed the same offence last year at the Italian GP but was not investigated by the stewards and received no penalty.