The Grand Prix of the Emilia-Romagna 2025 in Imola was just in the 49th of 63 rounds, and the field drove behind the safety car. Lando Norris had a third place through the Tosa curve through the optimal view of the tires of his front man Oscar Piatri-and he pressed the radio button: “I see that Oscar’s tires are quite over.”
“If we want to have a chance to fight the lead, then we know what to do,” he suggested to his racing engineer, Joseph and made it clear: “I don’t ask for being passed by. I just say: Let it make it too difficult to each other, that’s all. If we fight, we could be passed back back.”
The McLaren Command decided to reject this proposal, although Norris’ tires had 16 rounds less on their backs than that of Piatri.
Everyone should have been “100 percent clear” “that it was only a question of rounds until Norris Piatri would overtake” because of the tire difference “, as” Sky “expert Jacques criticized Villeneuve.
Villeneuve: McLaren has to look at Verstappen
But McLaren showed no reaction. The topic until the end of the race was no longer addressed in boxing radio between Norris and Joseph, and Piatri was not even informed about such thoughts.
According to Villeneuve, it would only have been logical to pronounce a stable order for Norris due to the situation: “Why lose three rounds instead of giving him a chance against Verstappen?
Norris didn’t make up anything and solved the problem in the Rad-am-Rad duel when he passed Piastri in the Tamburello chicane. Only: When that was done, he had lost 4.1 seconds on Leader Max Verstappen in the Red Bull. The race in Imola could no longer be won for him.
After the destination, Norris was asked in the FIA press conference whether there were discussions on the box radio about how Piatri and he should tackle the last rounds. “No,” he replied without twitching with the eyelash – and even when asked whether it was really never talked about a team order because he had the fresher tires, his answer was: “No. There was nothing.”
Either the 25-year-old suffers from amnesia, which would be very unusual for a top athlete of his age-or he used a small emergency lie to avoid the always unpleasant team order discussion, not knowing that his pit radio had been broadcast on the international TV broadcast.
Stella: McLaren thought about Team orders
McLaren team boss Andrea Stella later admitted to wave Norris past Piatri, which was definitely “definitely a consideration”. Ultimately, however, they decided against it at the command stand, because “we definitely wanted to give Oscar the opportunity to take advantage of their own opportunities during the restart”.
Stella thinks that this was the only fair way to manage the race in the spirit of the “Papaya Rules”, and “I think that both drivers agree”. In addition, Stella makes it clear: “If Lando had been able to overtake Max, he would have had to overtake Oscar quite easily because Oscar was on very old tires.”
But that was not the case. Despite the tire advantage, Norris needed four rounds to go past your own teammates. In this way, it is considered unlikely that he would have beaten off his own, with equivalent tire material.
But Villeneuve does not accept such arguments: McLaren “shows weakness”, says the world champion from 1997, and: “It seems as if they were afraid to proceed Piatri. This is really, really strange. Piatri screwed up the first curve. He slept and should never have come out of the curve second. And then he did not have the pace. Norris was faster.”
Wasn’t McLaren in Imola fast enough?
But it is also true: When Norris was over Piatri in round 58, he was 4.1 seconds behind Verzapen. Up to round 62, this distance grew to 6.5 seconds. “And to overtake in Imola, you have to be seven, eight tenths faster than the person in front,” says Stella based on the McLaren data collection.
Especially since Norris reminded that he was on the better tire – but at the same time he realizes: “I didn’t expect anything.” The duel with Piatri, which he was ultimately able to decide for himself, “of course cost time. I and him too.” But: “If you try to make some happy, the other will always be unhappy. That’s how it is. We handled it well.”
Alexander Wurz also sees it that way. In his eyes, a McLaren festival on one number 1 in the team “with two such pot drivers would be too early. That would be too brutally opposite one of the drivers and I would not yet make the World Cup open. And they must not forget that they are also fighting for a constructor World Cup,” says the “ORF” expert in an interview with “Formel1.de”.