McLaren’s driver management dilemma renews in Baku
On the eve of the Baku Grand Prix, one of the reasons of interest for the public and for the insiders will certainly be the management of the McLaren drivers by the team. It is still fresh in everyone’s memory the unpredictable attack from Piastri to his teammate and poleman Norris at the Roggia variant on the first lap of the recent Italian Grand Prix.
A successful attack but one that cost the victory to Lando Norris desperately needs to recover points to keep his hopes of winning the drivers’ title alive against a Verstappen crippled by his tarnished RB20. Norris is 62 points behind the three-time Dutch champion and with eight grands prix to go plus sprint races he can still clinch the title but would need a helping hand from his aggressive teammate.
A helping hand which was not there in Monza (on the contrary) and which, at least for now, the team does not seem to want or be able to ask of the young Piastri.
The four scenarios that try to explain the situation
There is no doubt that from the pit wall, Papaya struggled to manage the two drivers who have often fought for the top positions this season, giving them communications that were both confused and timid. Too timid to think they could give their all. possible support to Norris in his already difficult race towards the world drivers’ title.
Listing the possible and alternative reasons why McLaren is taking this “liberal” attitude in managing its drivers was Will Buxtonwho spoke in an episode of the podcast “The Race F1 Podcast”. Buxton is not just any journalist but he is the official commentator of F1 TV, or the official platform for the production and distribution of F1 video content and is also a well-known face to fans of Drive to Survive. It is therefore obvious that his opinion has a rather significant specific weight in the panorama of the media that follow F1. This his analysis on the possible causes of McLaren’s strange driver management:
“My four explanations about McLaren and this whole debate about driver management for the championship, can be divided into four very simple scenarios.
Scenario number one, He doesn’t care at all. They only care about the constructors and they don’t care about the drivers. They just tell them: you know, have fun, fight among yourselves, as long as you don’t come into contact with each other and don’t take points away from the team, everything is fine. We will happily win the constructors’ title which is the one that pays the money at the end of the season.
Scenario number two, total ineptitude. They don’t know what they are doing. They don’t know how to manage their drivers. The strategy is all mixed up. They are not ready for a championship fight and will throw it away purely through mismanagement. Harsh judgement but again, I am trying to explain why this is happening and what possible reasoning there could be.
The third scenario is contractual. Somewhere, that whether in Oscar’s or Lando’s contracts or both, there’s a clause that says they both have to have number one statusor that the team cannot make any decision that has a negative impact on that driver. So you cannot force a driver to give up a position. You cannot force him to give up a position in the race.
You can’t make a strategic decision that benefits one over the other. So McLaren is essentially racing with one hand tied behind its back. This might explain why it took them a long time to make seemingly simple decisions in the race.. This could be why they constantly ask their drivers to determine which tyres they want to use, which strategy they want to use, whether the team itself making that decision could be seen as potentially favouring one driver over another.
The fourth scenario is personal. I’ve heard whispers and chatter about it in the paddock and in the team, some members say that in reality There is a belief starting to form at McLaren that Oscar’s potential is higher than Lando’s. Lando has been there for six years, Oscar has been there for 18 months and over the last six, seven races, and probably overall this year, Oscar has been the more impressive driver of the two. I don’t think you can take that away from him, given his experience. You know, sometimes we forget the age difference between the two of them. It’s not just that Lando came into Formula One so young, especially because Red Bull came knocking and wanted him and McLaren had to hurry. Otherwise they would have risked losing him to Red Bull who kept knocking on the door. Lando has been Zak Brown’s ‘golden child’ for over half a decade. But there is a feeling that is starting to form in that team that potentially Oscar is the better of the two.”
#McLaren #Piastri #Attack #Norris #Scenarios
