It’s time for Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris to be selfish

With McLaren having all but wrapped up the Constructors’ Championship, the time has come for its drivers to put their ambitions ahead of the team’s.

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri have been faithful servants, fulfilling the obligations asked of them on track, but as we get towards the business end of the championship battle, it’s time they began looking after Number 1.

The Italian Grand Prix pushed the world championship battle into a critical juncture

It’s a point that comes off the back of a divisive decision at the Italian Grand Prix, where Piastri was asked to move aside for Norris in the closing stages.

A slow pit stop had delayed the Brit and dropped him from second to third, a point the McLaren pit wall remedied by issuing team orders to Piastri.

It was a move done in what the team perceived was in the best interests of the purity of the championship fight. Externally, it looked like favouritism.

However, the fact of the matter is Piastri obliged. It’s a credit to his character that, under the intense pressure and self-interest that must accompany any championship bid, he was able to park his ego and comply with instructions from the pit wall.

And in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t a significant change: it was only worth three points. Of course, there’s no way of knowing how significant those three points might be (six, effectively if you consider the swing), but it could have been worse.

Piastri’s compliance is laudable as it demonstrates the strong sense of team and culture within McLaren. But how does that reconcile against the white hot competition at the pinnacle of world motorsport? As much as a team sport F1 is, underneath it all, it’s driven by individual ambition.

There’s much that could – and has – been written over the rights and wrongs of the request on Sunday afternoon in Monza. While we are all entitled to our opinions, there are only really three or four that matter: Andrea Stella, Zak Brown, Lando Norris, and Oscar Piastri.

To the media, all towed the company line, but one could sense there was some pent-up frustration behind Piastri’s nonchalant dismissal of the ordeal.

In Zandvoort, PlanetF1.com suggested we’d witnessed something of a watershed moment as Norris pulled off the track and into retirement. We couldn’t have predicted quite what happened in Italy a week later, but one does ponder whether there’s a correlation.

Had the title battle been closer, if Norris had seen the flag in the Dutch Grand Prix, would the same decision have been forthcoming from the McLaren pit wall?

By instructing Piastri to move aside, it reduced the Australian’s points advantage by less than 10 per cent. Had Norris seen the flag a week earlier (in the order they were running at the time), that same three points from Monza would have left Piastri just 13 points clear. It’s a significant difference and perhaps that was a factor; consciously or otherwise.

And what does this mean going forward? Has the definition of papaya rules now been expanded to account for team errors? If so, who makes that decision on the fly? And if it’s covering off bad luck, how does that reconcile with Piastri’s penalty in Silverstone and the team’s unwillingness to reverse places there?

There is simply no way of knowing what might crop up at future events and so McLaren cannot, for all its preparation and conversation, have a plan for all eventualities.

For drivers in the hunt for a first world championship – and this goes equally for Lando as it does Oscar – it’s perhaps time the team’s wishes were parked.

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The pair find themselves in a head-to-head battle for the world championship. While there are others still mathematically in the hunt, it would be quite the comeback for Max Verstappen to steal a fifth title in F1 2025.

And with regulation changes coming next year, there is no guarantee that McLaren’s current form will remain. It might, but there is far less certainty than there would be if the regulations were remaining stable. Put simply, this is quite possibly the best and only opportunity both drivers will ever have to win a world championship.

With that in mind, and given McLaren’s primary objective – the Constructors’ Championship – has been effectively met for the year, it’s time the drivers throw off the shackles and begin racing as individuals.

Protecting the team and considering the greater good is a lovely concept, but at some point, the drivers have to seize the initiative and chase their childhood dream.

If Norris’ retirement in the Dutch GP was a watershed moment, the Italian GP is a fork in the road. Down one path is the uncertainty of a stage managed tussle with all the misconceptions that come with it. Down the other, is a no-holds-barred battle between two in-form drivers at the wheel of the best car on the grid in a battle only one of them can win.

It’s time Piastri and Norris take matters into their own hands and seize the life-changing opportunity that’s in front of them.

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