Oscar Piastri ‘chance’ emerges to end McLaren team orders in favour of Norris

With the Drivers’ Championship lost, and it is “most certainly” over, Bernie Collins is keen to see Oscar Piastri stamp his authority at McLaren to avoid a wingman role in F1 2025.

Piastri found himself on the wrong end of McLaren’s ‘papaya rules’ this season, the Australian driver asked to play the number two role to Lando Norris if necessary.

‘Oscar Piastri can now say, ‘I don’t want to be number two driver’

The McLaren team-mates started the season on equal footing before Lando Norris moved into second place in the Drivers’ standings at the Spanish Grand Prix when he overhauled Charles Leclerc. As McLaren’s MCL38 emerged as the car to beat, Norris did so as Verstappen’s nearest challenger both in the standings and on the track.

It had pundits questioning McLaren’s team decision when Norris was ordered to move over for Piastri at the Hungarian Grand Prix to re-establish their running order prior to a pit stop call that gave Norris the undercut.

Seven points were lost that day with Norris dropping a further three, if not more, at the Italian Grand Prix when Piastri overtook him on the opening lap in a move that allowed Charles Leclerc to also get the jump on the Briton.

That was the moment that McLaren drew the line, insisting from then on that Norris would be the preferred driver as, 44 points up on Piastri, he had the better chance of reeling in Verstappen. ‘Papaya rules’ were in play.

But it wasn’t until Brazil that they actually had an impact as Norris was well behind Piastri in Baku with the Aussie then trailing in the next three races. In Brazil though Piastri was on pole position for the Sprint, Norris P2 and with two laps to go McLaren ordered Piastri to give the win to his team-mate.

24 hours later it made no difference as Norris went from first to sixth in the Grand Prix while Verstappen raced from 17th to first to extend his lead to 62 points. With only 86 in play, it is, as Collins put it, “most certainly” over for the Briton.

The former Aston Martin strategist is now keen to see how Piastri reacts to that in the final three races of the championship.

“The interesting question is, the next three races,” she said on the Sky F1 podcast, “if we’re saying the Drivers’ Championship is done – it’s not mathematically but I understand it’s most certainly there – Piastri now has a chance to say, ‘I don’t want to be number two driver at race one next year’.

“So there’ll be no more of this give up your position in the Sprint race, give up your position in the main race. So I’m quite excited to see how that progresses in the next three.”

Has F1 2024 seen the end of McLaren’s ‘papaya rules’?

👉 ‘Papaya rules’ explained: What are McLaren instructing their drivers with new phrase?

👉 The ultimate F1 2024 title calculator: Can we have a new four-time world champion in Las Vegas?

Lengthy analysis awaits McLaren with points ‘lost’

Norris’ chances of winning the World title though were by no means undone by just Hungary, Monza and Brazil. There’s more to the story.

From McLaren’s start to the season, the team managing just two podiums before their Miami Grand Prix upgrade, to Norris’ bad starts where he lost positions off the line, to strategy errors, there is a lot for McLaren to examine when the post-season review begins.

“Just to give a little insight, the teams will track for each race where points were lost,” Collins explained. “Be that the first few races in car performance, how many were lost with driver errors for want of a better word at the start of the race, how many were lost through strategy errors, be that Canada missing the pit stop window, and there’ll be a running tracker through the whole year of where points were lost in that championship and where points were lost for Red Bull as well.

“So they will know what the biggest points loss through the year has been, where it’s come. And they will look at each of those categories, be it reliability, pit stop decisions, car pace, and they will try and fix bits from each of those. That tracker will be fully available to them.

“I’ve done it so many times with drivers in the past and saying, ‘This was the race where you had your biggest deficit to the competition. Let’s look at, is it a specific corner, a specific driving of that event, specific track, roughness, tyre combined, whatever it is’. So there’ll be loads to work on over the winter.

“Just not having gone through all those numbers, the biggest thing for me seems to be this indecision or lack of trust between driver and pit wall that has caused hesitation at some decisions at some points in the year, and they’ll be working on that. Every year the relationship will approve, you’ll be more confident going into next year.

“And so, you know, when the start seemed to have got better, maybe not explicitly this week with Russell off the line, but McLaren will look at that again in very different work conditions, so that will come and take a lot of time to reflect over the winter.”

McLaren could still win the Constructors’ Championship where they are 36 points up on Ferrari and a further 13 ahead of Red Bull.