How McLaren manages its drivers while leading both F1 championships

Having the fastest car on the grid and two drivers worthy of being world champions is probably the second-best scenario for which a team principal could wish.

The ideal, of course, is to have the quickest car, a super-fast number-one driver, and a number two who is quick enough but willing to sacrifice their own interests for the team. This is rare indeed in elite sport and neither Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, running first and second in the drivers’ championship now and separated by just 10 points, sees themselves as number-two material or covets that role.

“Managing Formula 1 drivers that compete for the same team on a fast car and in a quest for the championship is always going to be a difficult matter,” said McLaren team boss Andrea Stella during the Spanish Grand Prix weekend. “But so far we have approached it in a way that I think has allowed both drivers to express their qualities, their speed, and it’s been a relatively good run so far.”

Stella well knows the challenges, having begun his F1 career as a performance engineer at Ferrari when Michael Schumacher was in his pomp. While Michael was indisputably the number one, the subordinate role did not sit well with Rubens Barrichello all the time.

For instance, insiders have subsequently revealed that during the infamous 2002 Austrian Grand Prix meeting, Barrichello had (grudgingly) agreed during a pre-race meeting to swap places with his team-mate if he were leading. But Rubens then had to be reminded of this repeatedly and with growing insistence during the race, and in protest he waited until almost the last moment to execute the swap.

The move would have attracted comment at any point in the race – but doing it with the chequered flag virtually in sight generated maximum controversy, and team orders were subsequently banned. It was the racing driver equivalent of a ‘dirty protest’.

Michael Schumacher, Ferrari F2002, follows team orders and takes over team mate Rubens Barrichello, Ferrari F2002

Photo by: LAT Photographic

Stella had a more senior role at Ferrari – Fernando Alonso’s race engineer – when team orders returned to the public agenda in 2010 German Grand Prix at Hockenheim. There, another case of malicious obedience as Felipe Massa was given the not very securely encrypted message “Fernando is faster than you”.

Again, insiders have subsequently sketched a picture of turbulence behind the scenes, with both drivers raging over the radio and Massa even upping his pace to avoid having to move over. The scenario here was more nuanced, since Massa didn’t regard himself as the subordinate despite being 31 points behind in the drivers’ championship, but that season was a classic case of close competition where every point counted.

At the moment McLaren leads the constructors’ championship with 362 points, more than double the total of Ferrari, its nearest rival. The situation in the drivers’ standings is much closer, with Piastri on 186 points, Norris on 176, and Max Verstappen on 137. Arguably they have yet to achieve definitive escape velocity from George Russell (111) too.

That’s why any sign of apparent rancour between the two is the subject of speculation and gossip, since F1 history is amply stocked with examples of championships lost through team-mates taking points off one another. So far this season there has been nothing in the order of Norris having to be begged to move over in Hungary or Piastri barging through on the opening lap at Monza. But Norris’s attempt to get a tow from his team-mate during qualifying in Spain, and Piastri’s brusque swerve to cut it off – remarking afterwards on the radio that Norris had been “cheeky” – did hint at febrile undercurrents.

McLaren’s current policy is to promote open communication between its drivers while emphasising what it expects from each of them. Obviously it isn’t possible to anticipate every possible scenario or draw up a flowchart of who does what if one driver’s front wheel is slightly ahead of the other on the approach to the apex, so the onus is on Piastri and Norris to act like adults.

“It [qualifying] was a minor situation,” said Stella. “We always tell our drivers, don’t leave anything in the back of your mind. Anything, throw it out. Say what you think.

“In this case, Oscar’s comment was to highlight a situation that we didn’t discuss before. In itself it’s not anything too controversial but we sort of did not discuss that before and we don’t want to surprise our drivers with situations that we didn’t discuss before.

Lando Norris, McLaren, Oscar Piastri, McLaren, Andrea Stella, McLaren

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images via Getty Images

“So a little bit to take on for the team rather than for the drivers. We have to do some more homework and be ready even more for the coming races which surely will be interesting.”

What McLaren wants to avoid is a scenario such as the one that developed at Williams in 1986, where Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet mixed on a personal level like oil and water and took points off one another on track, enabling Alain Prost to stay in striking distance and ultimately win the title.

And what it absolutely cannot afford is the one that unfolded behind its own doors in 2007, where the relationship between Alonso and Lewis Hamilton – and later Alonso and the team itself – became utterly toxic, to the detriment of the championship. The most severe of all the on-track inflection points in that season came in China, where the pitwall lost focus on Hamilton’s race because it was too busy trying to scupper Alonso’s.

A different regime now holds sway in Woking, with clarity over what is expected from both drivers – and treatment of both which is not only equal, but clearly seen to be equal.

“The [pre-race] briefing is not getting tougher,” said Stella.

“The conversations are the same that we always have. Obviously when the two drivers start one next to each other and there is an 800 metres to corner one you might have to reiterate every detail of the way we go racing together.

“But so far I can only be very grateful to Lando and Oscar who have approached this internal competition with a great sense of responsibility – and pretty much sticking to the letter to what are our racing principles and approach.”

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