It is never an easy situation when two teammates in Formula 1 fight against each other for the World Cup title. Because often the interests of the team in such a constellation are not necessarily compatible with those of the two pilots.
So also on Saturday in qualifying in Monza, as Lando Norris in Q2 surprisingly in front of the end after he had put his first quick round in the sand in the first curve. So the second run had to sit.
And in this crucial situation, Oscar Piatri helped his team -mate with a slipstream – although it would of course have been significantly better for his own chances in the driver World Cup if Norris had left Q2.
“As soon as [Renningenieur] Tom [Stallard] Oscar asked for it, I knew that Oscar would do it, “reveals Andrea Stella, who despite the situation that had been tricky for Piatri had no doubt that the Australian would put the team’s interests about his own places.
“If it were the last race in Abu Dhabi, would we see the same thing? I can’t say it, but at the moment I’m just very proud that such things happen that Lando and Oscar run as you do,” says the team boss.
Does the driver still tip over at some point?
Such a situation shows the “quality of our drivers and the quality of the people behind the drivers we have at McLaren,” says Stella and emphasizes: “This is the way the people at McLaren, the team, want the drivers to racing, and I am sure that the fans want us to run like this.”
Of course, this is not, as a look into the past shows. In the 2016 season, for example, accidents occurred several times between the then Mercedes teammates Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg in the World Cup duel.
Piatri and Norris also collided this year in Canada, but Norris immediately took the crash there on his cap and the relationship between the two is still good today. At some point in Mercedes there was ice age between Hamilton and Rosberg.
At the 2016 season finale in Abu Dhabi, the situation escalated up to the point where Hamilton deliberately resisted an instruction from the team, braked the entire field behind him and thus jeopardized the team that was actually safe.
Stella: slipstream “was not a decisive factor”
Specifically, with regard to yesterday’s scene, Stella emphasizes: “The slipstream that Oscar Lando gave was not a decisive factor that Lando came in Q3.” The Brit still made the leap into the top 10 in the second run, but would have reached Q3 according to Stella on her own.
“But in itself it is a nice gesture of fairness and sportiness,” says the team manager. However, the question of whether this fairness will continue to exist by the end of the year is exciting if the World Cup duel should continue to worsen in the coming weeks.
When asked whether he would accept it, if one driver would at some point refuse to help the other in such a situation, Stella replies somewhat evasively: “It is in the right of the driver who gives the slipstream to say: ‘I don’t do that this time.'”
“I would not necessarily consider this to be the most elegant approach, but sometimes racing does not necessarily require elegance as long as you adhere to the principles and rules of the team,” said the team boss.
Means: In case of doubt, McLaren would be accepted if it should be a little harder in the World Cup duel between Piatri and Norris. However, this point has not yet come.