McLaren set “very difficult” precedent with F1 Italian GP swap

Mercedes Formula 1 chief Toto Wolff reckons McLaren’s call to ask Oscar Piastri to let Lando Norris past during the Italian Grand Prix after a slow stop for Norris was a “very difficult precedent to undo”.

As Norris and Piastri were on course to finish second and third behind dominant winner Max Verstappen, McLaren allowed Piastri to make his only pitstop before Norris to help defend his gap to fourth-placed Charles Leclerc.

A slow stop for Norris then caused the Briton to fall behind his team-mate and title rival, but because Piastri received pitstop priority against the usual order, McLaren demanded a puzzled Australian let Norris past again.

McLaren’s reasoning was that the decision was the reverse scenario of a similar team orders call at last year’s Hungarian Grand Prix, when Piastri fell behind due to a powerful undercut for Norris, but according to Wolff its Monza call has now set a new precedent.

“There is no right and there is no wrong, and I’m curious to see how that pans out,” Wolff said. “You set a precedent that is very difficult to undo.

“What if the team does another mistake and it’s not a pitstop… do you switch them around? But then equally, because of a team mistake, making a driver that is trying to catch up lose the points is not fair either.

“So, I think we are going to get our response of whether that was right today towards the end of the season when it heats up.”

Sauber team principal Jonathan Wheatley added: “They would have obviously talked about how they were going to go about racing, and I guess they had a conversation that if there was a team error they’d swapped positions.

“They obviously learned a lot of hard lessons last year. I’ve been very impressed with how they managed the two drivers fighting in the championship this year, and I think they were ahead of it.

“They weren’t having a discussion in the race, so it’s clearly something they talked about before.”