Norris still not official McLaren ‘number 1’ – Stella

Aug.28 (GMM) Lando Norris will not be bestowed clear ‘number 1’ status over the remaining 9 grands prix of 2024.

The 24-year-old Briton is now the standout McLaren driver in a dominant car, and very much in with a shot at closing the 70-point gap to Max Verstappen.

Norris won easily at Zandvoort, with teammate Oscar Piastri just P4.

“Oscar finished P4, so it’s not like McLaren were in a different class,” Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz observed. “I really think they owe that one to Lando.”

But Piastri, 23, broke through for his maiden victory just last month in Hungary – where McLaren controversially asked Norris to move aside because he had been the recipient of a better race strategy when Piastri was leading.

That cost Norris precious points that might make the different at the end of the world championship. So will McLaren have a change of policy going forwards?

“We already have conversations around team orders all season,” team boss Andrea Stella said. “You have these conversations in the context of what the drivers’ classification is.”

However, that doesn’t mean Norris will now become the official number 1.

“We have nine races ahead of us and if we create a number 1 driver, what do we do?” the Italian added. “All the favours to one driver? No, this is not a healthy way to run a team.

“For every race, we will analyse the situations and in the 50-50 situations, in this case if Lando needs a bit of extra support, we are going to give it to him. But the team includes Oscar. The team should not do things that are unreasonable to Oscar.”

Norris said at Zandvoort that the “only rule” in place between himself and his Australian teammate is “don’t crash into each other”.

“Otherwise, we’ve always been free to race,” Norris added.

Piastri agrees: “The rules are very, very clear and haven’t changed. And yeah, we’re free to race each other to try and win.”

Like Sainz, however, former F1 driver Christijan Albers thinks Norris was clearly better than Piastri last weekend. “He really was not strong,” he told De Telegraaf newspaper.

Piastri said after the Dutch GP: “I was stuck in dirty air. As soon as I got clean air, the pace was strong. It’s just that I was stuck behind people for 65 of the 72 laps.”

Albers, however, reacted: “If Norris can overtake Verstappen, why can’t Piastri overtake George Russell?”

But what is now clear is that if Piastri is ahead of Norris on track, McLaren might be making a radio call. “It is not the team that has to make this decision,” Stella insists. “The decision is made on the track.

“No driver should be number 1 just because he thinks ‘I’m that’. Of course, if it happens again, we will choose the driver who is in the better position in the drivers’ championship.

“For me, it is a question of principle,” Stella added. “If you give up these principles too quickly, you create a climate of inequity in the team, and that does not pay off in the long term.

“I keep repeating that I don’t know any driver who wants to be number 1 by contract. Drivers want to be number 1 because they are fastest on the track.”

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