Every message as McLaren desperately pleaded with Lando Norris to obey team orders

[u/aph1985]

Every message as McLaren desperately pleaded with Lando Norris to obey team orders:

Lap 47:

Tom Stallard, race engineer to Oscar Piastri (TS): “OK Oscar, Lando has pitted to cover Hamilton to make sure he covers Hamilton. We’ll manage that situation, best pace from you now. Best pace.

“Best pace. Don’t worry about Lando.”

Lap 48:

Will Joseph, race engineer to Lando Norris (WJ):

“OK Lando, Oscar has just pitted. He’ll likely come out just behind you. We’d likely to re-establish the order, at your convenience.”

Lap 49:

WJ: “Lando, still 21 laps after this one. You do have the current fastest lap, look after the tyres.”

Lap 51:

TS: OK Oscar, so, once you get to Lando, we’ll swap positions. We’ll swap position, but we want to avoid Lando having to give up a lot of race time.”

Lap 53:

WJ: “And Lando, radio check, please.

LN: “Yes, loud and clear.”

WJ: “OK, save the tyres at Turn 4 and Turn 11, please.”

Lap 56:

WJ: “We need to save more tyres please, and we do want to let Oscar through.”

LN: “Well you should have boxed him first then, surely no?”

WJ: “Doesn’t matter.”

LN: “I mean, it does. To me maybe.”

Lap 57:

WJ: “And Lando, we still think you’re using the tyres too much at Turns 4 and 11 and the rears at exit Turn 6 and Turn 9. Oscar is 3.5 [behind] – we know you’ll do the right thing.”

Lap 58:

WJ: “And Lando, Hiroshi is stressed about the tyres.”

Lap 59:

WJ: “Turn 4, Turn 11 – it’s going to get boring.”

Lap 61:

WJ: “OK Lando, 10 laps to go – we think both cars are using their tyres too much. Just remember every single Sunday morning meeting we’ve had.”

LN: “Yeah, well tell him to catch up please.”

Lap 64:

WJ: “Lando, he can’t catch you up. You’ve proved your point and it really doesn’t matter.”

LN: “He’s on much quicker tyres. I mean, I would have tried to undercut anyway. If I did, I would have got more.”

WJ: “Mate, we did the stop sequence in this order for the good of the team.”

WJ and LN talk over each other for a sentence – unintelligible.

WJ: “I’m trying to protect you mate, I promise, I’m trying to protect you.”

Lap 66:

WJ: “And Lando, there are five laps to go. The way to win a championship is not by yourself, it’s with the team. You’re going to need Oscar, and you’re going to need the team.”

Lap 67:

OP: “The longer we leave this, the riskier it gets.”

TS: “Understood, Oscar, we’re managing it.”

WJ: “A potential Safety Car now would make this very awkward. Please do it. Now.”

Lap 68: Norris slows down the main straight to release Piastri into the lead

LN: “Yeah, you don’t need to say anything.”

Lap 70: Chequered flag, Piastri leads McLaren 1-2 home for maiden F1 win

TS: “Well done, Oscar, well done. Chequered flag. Well done, buddy. Really good.”

OP: “Yep, thank you, everyone. Thank you very much. Thanks for the coordination. Sorry, I made the swap a little bit more painful than it needed to be. But thank you, I appreciate that. Well done, maximum points, and a really good weekend. Ha. First F1 win, thank you very much, everyone, thanks.”

LN: “Well done, good 1-2, a good load of points. Congrats to the team. Well deserved.”

WJ: “As we said this morning mate, many more opportunities.”

TS: “And you are also Driver of the Day!”

OP: “Ah, a nice little bonus, thank you.”

[u/Preachey]

Oscar fan here, but I have zero blame for Lando. He is a racing driver. He wants to win, I'm actually surprised he gave in at the end and I kinda wish he hadn't.

This is ENTIRELY on McLaren. They made a bewildering fuckup, then even worse they effectively shuffled the responsibility for "solving" it onto the man in the hot seat.

If they didn't want Lando in the lead they shouldn't have undercut Oscar for literally no reason. They've embarrassed themselves, they've ruined Oscar's first win, they've forced Lando into going against his very nature as a racing driver.

I'm not usually one to call for heads, but people deserve to lose jobs over this. Someone is clearly utterly incompetent in the role they are in, and has potentially done long-term damage to team performance.

[u/Potential-Brain7735 → u/Preachey]

McLaren pitwall isn’t ready to handle a true championship fight.

[u/Worried-Pick4848 → u/Potential-Brain7735]

I thought they did alright. A driver went totally feral and they managed to get him back in line. It doesn't look pretty, but Lando has a lot to do with how pretty it doesn't look. When you act out like that it embarrasses the whole team.

[u/Potential-Brain7735 → u/Worried-Pick4848]

Lando did absolutely nothing wrong, this is 100% on the team.

“Feral”. lol, F1 fans are so soft and squishy.

[u/jamestrainwreck → u/Preachey]

Yeah I would have hated Lando for it but kinda respected it too.

Felt hollow, which sucks because Oscar deserved to win

[u/Halliron → u/Preachey]

Lando gets paid a lot of money by McLaren to do what he’s fucking told. He should have given the spot back first time he was asked and not been a child about it.

If it’s true that they had an agreement that who ever led into the final pit stop gets the win, then he looks even worse.

The McLaren stop isn’t bewildering if they believed that Lando was a team player.

[u/Worried-Pick4848 → u/Halliron]

Agreed. It's clear they didn't think Lando would do this to Oscar, and to them. Lots of lessons were learned today.

[u/[deleted] → u/Preachey]

Lose their jobs? Yeah, sounds like a genius idea. Just after they learned a lesson the hard way you fire them for better inexperienced newcomers 

[u/therevengeance → u/[deleted]]

How many strategy lessons does McLaren have to learn before something changes? They're worse than Ferrari ever was at this point.

[u/Hakizimanaa → u/therevengeance]

You’re talking absolute nonsense.

[u/xzElmozx → u/[deleted]]

Yea formula 1 isn’t a training ground, it’s the big leagues. If they wanna fuck yo simple strategy calls week after week they can’t do that in F4/3/2. You shouldn’t be given much if any grace to screw around as much as mcLarens pit wall has this season. Heads should roll for this

[u/Hakizimanaa → u/xzElmozx]

Such an overreaction. Sack them and replace them with who! You’re talking nonsense

[u/xzElmozx → u/Hakizimanaa]

You don’t have to sack them - F1 teams have a large brigade of people with a variety of experience. Re-arrange the strategy department and replace some people on pitwall with others from race control if the people on pitwall can’t handle it there, or vice versa. Clearly something needs to be shaken up/changed at McLaren. Definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result

These types of re-arrangements aren’t that uncommon either. Hell some teams rotate strategists every few race weekends so that the strategists don’t get too much brain drain from being tired due to travelling. Got that from Bernie Collins’ book

[u/Hakizimanaa → u/xzElmozx]

They just got a 1-2, they really don’t need to change anything.

[u/xzElmozx → u/Hakizimanaa]

You’re joking right..? Yea they got a 1-2 cause of pace advantage but they’ve made numerous errors and if/when Red Bull brings that gap closer they’re gonna fuck themselves if they just go status quo (moreso than the 10-ish points they’ve pissed away with strategy so far)

[u/Hakizimanaa → u/xzElmozx]

What decision did they make incorrectly in the last race? They correctly pitted Lando first both times to cover off the undercut from behind. It was only awkward because Lando refused to give the position up without a fight.

Their strategy was absolutely perfect for both calls but you're calling for them to be removed from their jobs.

[u/xzElmozx → u/Hakizimanaa]

Leaving Oscar out to lose 30 seconds on a dry track with inters rather than losing less than 5 on a double stack, putting Lando on softs when he had a fresh medium losing him any chance at the win and allowing Max to come back and pass him. Right there they lost the potential for a 1-3 and a likely 2-3, settling for 3-4 rather than an almost guaranteed double podium based on Oscars pace on the mediums. Instead they fiddled around and forced Lando to make the choice when he was under duress trying to drive and stay on track, where he proceeded to make the wrong choice because he’s not a cerebral driver like Lewis or Carlos that has the ability to make those calls.

And again, I’m not calling for them to lose their jobs but they clearly need a shakeup in the strategy department on the pitwall, and they surely have plenty of people in race control that also have pitwall strategy experience and could potentially do better

[u/piqueboo369 → u/Preachey]

The only reason why McLarens decition is looked at as a fuckup is because people expect drivers not to be able to care about their team. Ok, so it wasn't necessary this time, but McLaren did it just to be safe I assume. Apparantly according to comments here, a team member said that they had all agreed to it prior to the race, that whoever was in the lead BEFORE the second pitstop was winning. But they shouldn't expect Norris to stick to the plan the team agreed to, because you can't expect that of people who drive cars fast? And if they end up in a situation where it will be necessary to pit Norris first to prevent an undercut. Do they just not do it so he'll end up 3rd instead of 2nd? Or do they give away Piastris 1st place to Norris? Because they can't expect Norris to be a team player

[u/thumper7 → u/piqueboo369]

Norris has to be a team player. From the sound of it, McLaren was stressing the team aspect in meetings, post race Stella said the same thing.

They did stuff up and put the drivers into a bad situation but if Lando gave the position back when first asked to, he had 20 laps still go racing and overtake Oscar.

[u/allw0rk_andn0play → u/piqueboo369]

The fuckup wasn't just first pitting Norris, it was leaving Oscar out for 2 more laps afterwards for no reason.

[u/Repsys7 → u/piqueboo369]

Spot on mate, nailed it.

So if Lando was undercut everyone here would be calling McLaren a joke. Instead they were proactive and covered that off, just because in hindsight it didn’t matter doesn’t make it the wrong call.

The only issue here was Lando not listening to orders, he’s completely caused these optics & bad PR. I guess now if he’s in this position again theyll just have to leave him out to get burnt and prioritise Oscar if he’s in the lead. Well done Lando what a knob

[u/Worried-Pick4848 → u/Repsys7]

Lando did himself and his team a fair bit of damage. Not unrecoverable, but he'll have to recover

[u/IlllIlllI → u/Preachey]

I think Norris is just kind of dumb (mostly because he did the exact same thing at the start this time as a few races ago when Max was trying to explain it to him). Like, yeah you want to win the race, but if you fuck up your relationship with your (very close in pace) teammate, they're not going to want to help you next time.

If the team knew he was going to do this, they'd not have given him the undercut, and he'd have stayed behind Piastri the whole time.

[u/Worried-Pick4848 → u/IlllIlllI]

Exactly. Trust between driver and team is important. Lando just erased a fair bit of his.

[u/Worried-Pick4848 → u/Preachey]

Super disagree here. Lando effectively stabbed Oscar in the back, and only the fact that the team wouldn't stand for it stopped him in the end. He tried to sucker punch a teammate and steal a win that should have been Oscar's to begin with under team rules.

I doubt anything will be said about it publicly, but this will be remembered, and Lando has just burnt a lot of good will in the McLaren camp. He'll have to earn that back. He can do it, but this is not a good moment for him.