to have Piastri return second place to Norris<\/a>, after the British driver lost the position due to a slow pit stop caused by a faulty wheel gun, was contentious.<\/p>\nWith Norris claiming second place he gained three points on his teammate in the championship standings, narrowing the gap to 31 points. Many fans were aggrieved at the perceived manipulation of the result and the Mercedes team principal, Toto Wolff, warned that the team\u2019s use of team orders in an effort to be as fair as possible to both drivers risked setting precedents that would become increasingly hard to manage in the title run-in.<\/p>\n
Speaking before this weekend\u2019s Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Piastri was confident that ultimately it would be the drivers, not the team, that decided the title fight. \u201cI do think we have enough freedom to control our own destiny in the championship,\u201d Piastri said. \u201cNaturally there have been thoughts, we have had good discussions with the team. We have clarified a lot of things, we know how we will go racing going forwards.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked to move over at Monza the Australian had questioned the call, noting on the team radio: \u201cWe said that a slow pit-stop was part of racing, so I don\u2019t really get what changed here\u201d. In Baku he said he stuck by his words but went on to explain that the slow stop had not been the sole rationale behind McLaren\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is a decision we\u2019ve made, that a slow pit stop is a part of racing,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the car, the context wasn\u2019t there about what else had happened in terms of the pit stop sequencing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was another factor outside of the slow pit stop, being the order we pitted in. That was a contributing factor to why we swapped. We can\u2019t plan for every scenario but we are very aligned and I respect the team\u2019s decisions and trust they will do their best to make the right one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lando Norris in his McLaren during the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. Norris finished second after his team ordered him and Piastri to swap places. Photograph: Jay Hirano\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n
Norris said he too was confident the team would not play a significant role in the title battle. \u201cWe both agreed with it after and accepted that\u2019s what we agree as a team,\u201d he said. \u201cThe team try and keep things fair between us but there\u2019s not been many things where they\u2019ve had to actually get involved and do anything to help one or the other.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wolff, who managed what became a bitter and acrimonious fight between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg at Mercedes, had said he believed McLaren were setting up a potentially incendiary situation. \u201cYou set a precedent that is very difficult to undo,\u201d he said after Monza. \u201cWhat if the team makes another mistake and it\u2019s not a pit stop. Do you switch them around?\u201d<\/p>\n
Many fans were equally displeased, with Norris receiving some booing on the podium at Monza, but Piastri was happy the team had made an acceptable call.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we had done the opposite thing, then you\u2019d have the opposite half of the fans saying that that was wrong and vice versa,\u201d he said, \u201cSo ultimately there\u2019s no correct decision. Am I surprised [by the backlash]? Not really. I guess it\u2019s a big moment from the race and I feel like a lot of fans are quite quick to jump on things that are deemed controversial.\u201d<\/p>\n
McLaren go into the race with the chance of sealing their second consecutive constructors\u2019 championship and their 10th in total, with a record of the earliest point in a season, with seven races still remaining. They lead Ferrari in second by 337 points and will take the title if they outscore them by nine points and are not outscored by Mercedes by 12 points or Red Bull by 33 points.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri has insisted that he and his McLaren teammate, Lando Norris, are in control of their own…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[4199,707,4200,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-434890","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-formula-1","10":"tag-formula1","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115228292092001716","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}