Jordan believes McLaren screwed up Piastri to favour Norris
F1 News
Ever since the Hungarian Grand Prix, McLaren has come under a lot of criticism over their team orders. During that weekend, the team chose to pit Lando Norris first despite the Brit being behind Oscar Piastri on track. This put Norris in front of the Australian, despite Piastri having led the majority of the race. Eventually, Norris did return the position, but after a lot of debate between himself and the pit wall. Since then, McLaren has been under the watchful eye of fans and pundits alike regarding which driver they prioritise. Eddie Jordan believes they made a "very serious mistake" at Zandvoort.
Did McLaren intentionally 'screw up' Piastri to favour Norris
Speaking on their Formula For Success podcast, Eddie Jordan and David Coulthard were debating over whether McLaren can seriously challenge Red Bull for the Constructors Championship. Coulthard started by saying "The constructors really does feel that the momentum is well and truly with McLaren. You mentioned Oscar there. Oscar didn't quite manage to put his weekend together in the same way that Lando and even if..." before being interrupted by his co-host Jordan.
"They screwed him up. David, stop, stop. McLaren screwed him up again. They left him out far too long and you know that and they've done that before and then they're stacking at Silverstone. Look, as far as I'm concerned it's no harm because I think Piastri has won his race.He now has the knowledge. He knows how to win and what it's like to win. But you know, some of the things are playing absolutely away from him and that is that I think they made a very serious mistake about the way they pitted him. They let it go far, far too late." This was the opinion of the former team owner on McLaren's strategy at Zandvoort.
Norris had pitted on lap 28 and went on to win the race by over 20 seconds. Piastri, however, was left out until lap 33 and finished the Grand Prix fourth. Coulthard was of the opinion that this wasn't just the team's fault on race day. "I think that he has to own that he didn't quite get his [Piastri] lap together in qualifying. And that's where the difficulties start.”
“And I have a lot of experience of not pulling together qualifying lap. If you get ownership of the grid, get yourself at the front, that's exactly what you have. Ownership. The minute you're on the back foot, which is where he was on the grid, having qualified third, then I think he lost that place again at the start. So the whole thing was going to be difficult for him.” Coulthard concluded. Despite disagreeing over whether or not McLaren 'screwed up' Piastri, the pair were in agreement that McLaren could seriously challenge Red Bull for the Constructors title.
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