Amidst claims of bias at McLaren, team boss Andrea Stella admits he is keen to avoid the continued use of team orders that favour Lando Norris.

The events of a number of recent races, including Hungary, Italy and the Japanese Grand Prix, have led to claims that the Woking team is favouring its British driver in favour of his Australian teammate.

At Suzuka the pair were on different strategies and rather than endanger its hopes of a double podium finish, McLaren called on Piastri to yield to his teammate rather than hold him up as they battled for position.

Fair enough one might say, but this came on the back of similar calls at the Hungaroring and Monza, which have led to calls from fans - and yes, we mean you Kenji - of bias.

"It was much, much easier in a way, as those two situations were stressful, especially the one in Monza," explains Andrea Stella, according to Motorsport.com. "And when I say stressful, I mean stressful because we created stress between our two drivers, which we could have avoided.

"That's something that we reviewed," he continues. "It may happen again in the future, but when it is avoidable, we should avoid it.

"In this case, the approach was; 'let's see how fast Lando is closing, and let's see if the overtaking comes naturally'. When we saw that it doesn't come so natural, then we asked the drivers to swap, so that we wouldn't lose race time for both.

"In a race like this, every lap of tyre that you save, so if you pit one lap later than somebody else, you gain one tenth," insists the Italian. "Lando at that stage pitted six laps later, so his car is automatically six tenths quicker than the other car.

"Also, in addition to that, I have to say that Lando's pace was very good in absolute terms. And if anything, we have to look with Oscar at where we could have gained the one or two tenths overall pace that he seemed to lack compared to Lando."

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by kenji, 04/10/2023 15:21

"So the sponsors are worth diddly squat!"

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2. Posted by Spindoctor, 04/10/2023 10:41

"@ Editor - excellent point! I guess I meant they get BIGGER bucks by finishing higher in the championship!"

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3. Posted by Editor, 03/10/2023 11:48

"@ Spindoctor

Re: "Teams can get big bucks from their position in that championship"

The teams get ALL their bucks from that championship!"

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4. Posted by Spindoctor, 03/10/2023 11:46

"@kenji - the key word is "illusion". As you have frequently pointed-out previously F1 is a business (especially nowadays). Teams can get big bucks from their position in that championship, SFA from their driver winning the Drivers' championship."

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5. Posted by kenji, 03/10/2023 11:31

"Apologies for double dip but I failed to add that from my own perspective I am, and always have been, driver centric. Teams just happen to be an integral part of the whole enchilada."

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6. Posted by kenji, 03/10/2023 11:25

"@Spindoctor....For the life of me I cannot understand just how you have drawn that conclusion from my post! The thrust of my point was that both championships are running contradictory to the 'free to race' illusion. This is because of the disconnect in 'ambition' made within racing outcomes. The last major fan survey concluded that 91% of fans supported teams and 94% supported drivers, meaning a vast majority follow both. So what? That's nothing new. "

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7. Posted by Spindoctor, 03/10/2023 10:38

"@kenji
Dare I suggest you're missing the point? As I see it the real competition is between the teams: Ferrari, Mercedes et al don't spend "$150m" in order to make C. Leclerc or L. Hamilton or j. Doe Drivers' Champion. Their interest (no matter how misplaced) is in winning the Team championship - Drivers' gong is merely a nice to have, an entry in Wikipedia.....

Maybe us fans have a different perspective - it's pretty hard to engage with corporate Mercedes or Ferrari\Fiat\Stellantis or RBR, wings or no. Naturally we gravitate (as Mr Noble has been exploring elsewhere) to the personalities, the "human" aspect. We want to follow, to support: the rivalry between Lewis & VMax, the old soldier Alonso still making waves in middle age, the bright young Kiwi who might not drive next season etc. This is NOT the stuff of DTS, but genuine engagement, empathy if you will.
Even in explicitly team games such as football (soccer_) we need our focus on individuals. During matches there are numerous individual battles between strikers & defenders. Arsenal fans remember Henry, Man United Cantona & so on...
"

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8. Posted by Spindoctor, 03/10/2023 10:21

"@Defiant - nice reference to Ron Dennis not posh nor foreign enough to get the recognition he deserves!"

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9. Posted by kenji, 03/10/2023 1:13

"The basic problem as i see it begins with the concept. What other major global ' sport' has two WC's contained within yet embraces major accolades to individual drivers?. What major global sport embraces 'race fixing'? If it was a singular world title ,WF1C, and the winning team won two WC's ,one for each driver, then team orders would be fine...but results are, to a large extent, a joke. There very many examples of manipulation as followers are already aware. Who can ever forget the greatest cringeworthy events of the '02 Austrian GP between Shumacher and Barichello ?. WEC seem to have this covered...as a 'team event' with the winning team all sporting WC drivers. Let the drivers really race. "

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10. Posted by Defiant, 02/10/2023 19:43

"I agree with most of the posts here, I think this a great problem for McLaren to have, two great drivers that seem to be pushing each other and the team forward. I'm liking both Lando and Oscar, they even appear to be handling this storm in a teacup pretty well, leaving me hopeful for even more great finishes. Lets hope one or both of them get some top steps out of this.
Thumbs up for getting your name in the article kenji... hahahah. I don't agree the treatment is blatantly one sided, but I may be wrong (particularly as you know I don't watch the full races anymore), I'm just hopeful that a little of Ron is still within the team and it's ethos, time will tell I guess. "

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11. Posted by Bill Hopgood, 02/10/2023 18:30

"Who would have thought that McLaren would even be in this situation a year or so ago or even at the start of this season?

This driver situation is actually a nice problem for McLaren to have, it shows the engineers and drivers are doing a good job to be in such a position to have to make such calls."

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12. Posted by Mad Matt, 02/10/2023 15:28

"I'm still not convinced anything nefarious is going on here, perhaps a clumsy call but in Japan I thought Oscar got to come in first to cover someone else off, just as Lando had had at a previous race. Oscar even got the boost of pitting under the VSC (at least in part).

In the end , in Japan, Lando finished a long way up the road and Oscar acknowledged that so, for me, if not the newly famous @kenji, things at McLaren seem fairish for now.

Personally I've come to quite like Oscar's no-nonsense, no hysterics approach :-)"

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13. Posted by Spindoctor, 02/10/2023 15:12

"Team Orders are a consequence of F1 being a "team sport". The team principals are responsible for making judgements as to the best course of action & for justifying them to the drivers & fans afterwards.
Lando has done a good job for McLaren over the past few years and it seems obvious that Stella would bet on him rather than the less-known quantity of Piastri.

Having said that, Piastri is a coming man & Stella might well come to a different conclusion in future...."

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14. Posted by kenji, 02/10/2023 14:37

"@KKK It seems as though an official 'mention in despatches' has finally been made. Here was I thinking that no one was listening to my incessant 'drum banging' and all along Stella was wracking his brain to come up with an explanation that would take the sting out of what was blatantly obvious. About time ! Maybe Mark Webber has finally had a word or two. There is no shame in being outraced by a faster driver in a faster car or combinations of the same especially if you're a rookie on a track that you've never ever driven on in the past.Being told to move over for your teamate though is of itself humiliating. Race fixing is an aberrant practice....IMO. "

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15. Posted by KKK, 02/10/2023 13:36

"@Kenji : Youre famous now ! To be honest I ignore team order issues, They have been there since God was a boy!"

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Stella keen to avoid "stress" of team orders

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