Lando or Oscar: Who should’ve won?

I put the question to our Twitter (latterly known as X) audience and two to one they said Lando, but perhaps our predominantly British community could be forgiven for being a touch partisan. But essentially Lando found himself leading the race, thanks to being called in to change tyres before his teammate to stave off attack from a resurgent Lewis Hamilton. This was seemingly done under the understanding that when that challenge had receded, the original order would be re-established. But Norris was clearly reluctant to do so and, to make his case, proceeded to drive at a pace Piastri could not match while inviting him to ‘catch up’ so overall race time would not be lost, knowing full well the young Australian would not be able to.

This caused a stream of veiled threats to be issued by the McLaren team, as a rather unedifying but still fascinating psychodrama unfolded on the radio over the last few laps of the race. With just three laps to go, perhaps realising the safety car that would have guaranteed him a guilt-free win wasn’t coming, Norris complied and let his teammate through, not even bothering to do it just before the pit straight where he could use his greater speed and DRS advantage to get the place back. In the end, as he was always likely to, he did what his team required him to do.

But should he have done so? Think of the multiple World Champions of recent years – Verstappen, Hamilton and Vettel. Would they have played the team game and meekly submitted to team orders, despite being the faster driver? I think it is vanishingly unlikely. Senna? Inconceivable. (Lewis did hand a place back to Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas at the same track in 2017, true, but the circumstances were quite different.)

Lando is a nice guy, reputedly one of the nicest in the pit lane and, to me, that makes me like and admire him hugely. But it is also what is most likely to deny him the slew of titles his talent undoubtedly deserves. And maybe he is okay with that – Stirling was the toughest fighter out there and after Fangio’s retirement the undisputed greatest driver in the world, yet there are precisely zero stories of him behaving with anything less than total correctness towards his fellow drivers, an approach which, without question, cost him at least one World Championship.

So I applaud Lando for stating his case, proving his point beyond question, but still ultimately playing the team game. But the point is this: he should never have been put in that position in the first place. It would have been different if Lando already had the drivers’ title all but sewn up and could afford the luxury of letting Piastri past, but the truth is that through its own efforts (aided it’s true by internecine warfare at Red Bull) McLaren now finds itself in a position where, just maybe, Lando can overhaul his rival and become only McLaren’s second championship-winning driver this century and the first for 16 years. And if Lando ends up missing that title by fewer than the seven points his team took away from him this weekend, McLaren will only have itself to blame – that’s just one fewer than the total that separated Lewis and Max at the end of 2021.

Oscar is clearly a great guy too, but with Lando far ahead in every comparative metric of their time as teammates, nothing bar a freak set of circumstances – such as Norris getting injured and having to sit out the rest of the season – gives Piastri the smallest chance of being champion this year. So McLaren should have got on the blower to Oscar, explained that circumstances had changed and that, for the sake of the team, which would benefit as much from a drivers’ title as the driver, Lando was going to win. It would have been a tough call, and we’d all have felt very sorry for Oscar not winning his first GP, but it’s a tough sport too and, for the team that employs both drivers, the right call to make.

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