F1 News
More alarm bells for Verstappen: McLaren favour Norris in some situations
McLaren are sensing their chances of winning the World Champion are increasing. After previously having a firm stance of no driver preferences between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, team boss Andrea Stella has suggested Norris will now be favoured in certain 50-50 situations.
After a stunning performance in the Dutch Grand Prix - where Norris beat Verstappen by over 20 seconds in Zandvoort - Norris cut his World Championship deficit by eight points. The Brit even pinched the bonus point for the fastest lap as he crossed the finish line. Norris now has a 70-point gap to Verstappen with nine Grand Prix weekends remaining. Meanwhile, Oscar Piastri finished behind Verstappen and saw his gap increase to 116.
McLaren's fresh stance in team orders
Norris has a very slim chance but will be encouraged by the performance shown in Zandvoort. Speaking to GPblog and others after the Grand Prix in Zandvoort, Stella was asked whether Norris will get more support after such a strong performance.
"We always have conversations around team orders because you always want to enter a race having clarity as to how we are going to manage the internal competition between the two drivers. So the conversations about team orders happen throughout the season, but then you have to take this conversation within the context of what is, for instance, the driver's classification," Stella explained before saying they still do not want to make a firm number one driver.
What do we do if we create a number one driver? All the favours to the number one driver? This is not a healthy way of running a team. But for every race, we will now analyse the situations, and in the 50-50 situations, or in those cases in which, in this case, Lando may need a bit of extra support from the team, we are going to give it," Stella said, providing Norris with good news. Perhaps it will also sound more alarm bells for Verstappen.
"But the team includes Oscar. The team should not do things that don't look reasonable to Oscar. We are in this together. He needs to be part of this conversation, and he needs to be in agreement with what we think is the way forward," Stella concluded.
A lot of this debate stems from the decision to swap the drivers in Hungary. Norris would've had an extra seven points had he not been told to give the race win to Piastri. But - by the Brit's own admission - he should've beaten his teammate off the start line instead.