Team orders. While very much a part of Formula 1, team orders still hold a somewhat taboo reputation. The officials hate to see it, the teams hate to use it, and the drivers, more often than not, hate to follow them. All three instances were evident in the Hungarian Grand Prix on Sunday (July 21st), and McLaren found themselves embroiled in another team orders controversy.
First, let’s congratulate Oscar Piastri on his first F1 win. The Australian took the lead with a bold start from P2 and beat a seven-time world champion in Lewis Hamilton, a three-time world champion in Max Verstappen, and a no-time world champion in McLaren teammate and sometime loose cannon Lando Norris.
Let’s now look back to 1998, back to a time when Verstappen was just a year old, and likely crying just a little bit more than he does now. Norris was a year from being born, and I have to guess that while in utero, Norris refused to vacate his mother’s womb until doctors induced labor, and he finally arrived three days early.
Anyway, at the 1998 Australian Grand Prix, the first race of the season, McLaren teammates Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard started 1-2, respectively. The team determined that the driver who won the race to the first corner would be the team’s priority in winning the grand prix. Hakkinen was first to the corner and thus in the driver’s seat for the win.
(Side note: It seems preposterous that team orders would even be discussed, much less employed, in the season’s first race. That’s like a golfer using a mulligan on his/her first shot of a round. Or Bernie Ecclestone paying taxes before he even knows he owes taxes. I know F1 has had difficulty regulating team orders, but can they at least ban them in, say, the first ten races of the season? Team orders, for the most part, are used to ensure that a driver scores maximum points towards the world championship. The first ten races for a team(s), in the hypothetical “no team orders in the first ten races” scenario, should be used to establish which driver has more points and is in line to benefit from team orders once they become legal after ten races).
Back to the 1998 Australian GP. Midway through the race, a so-called “phantom” radio communication brought Hakkinen in for an unscheduled pit stop, allowing Coulthard to inherit the lead. Long story short, Coulthard, later in the race, slowed to let Hakkinen by for the race win.
Controversy ensued, surprisingly, with most of the focus aimed at the team orders situation and not the phantom radio communication, for which, to this day, there seems to be no explanation. Most complaints said the orders diminished the competitive nature of the race. As F1 team orders controversies go, this one was mild. It was controversial because it happened and seemed justified because of the pre-race agreement and the unexpected “phantom” communication. McLaren’s 2024 team orders controversy was controversial because it happened, and mostly because Norris made us all, himself included, wait to see if it would happen.
It’s understandable that Norris might feel the need to go on a power trip and steal a win he did not deserve. Of course, Norris has let likely wins slip away in Spain, Austria, and Britain, some through no fault of his own. With wins in all three, or, at the very least, two of those races, any McLaren team orders at Hungary would have been made with the benefit of Norris in mind. And Piastri would have been happy to fall in line without delay.
Does this year’s team orders situation deserve a memorable nickname, like 2008’s “Crashgate” at the Singapore Grand Prix, or the “Multi 21” situation in the 2013 Malaysian Grand Prix? Had Norris not relented and allowed Piastri through, a nickname would certainly be necessary. Something like “McLaren FU,” or “It’s My Team, Mate.”
And since Norris eventually did the right thing, we can call the mini-controversy “I’m Gonna Make You Wait Gate.”
Some of the most exciting radio communications are those between Verstappen and Red Bull when things aren’t going quite so well for Verstappen. Those transmissions are comical. The communications between Norris and McLaren at Hungary were anything but comical. They were dramatic and tense, and I think everyone listening could sense at the time that if Norris refused to follow team orders, a controversy of seismic proportions would unfold and, with it, a roadblock to McLaren’s burgeoning momentum, not to mention an irreparable rift between the team’s two drivers. It would have been devastating for McLaren, which has firmly positioned itself as a championship contender for both drivers and constructors championships in 2025.
Norris displayed a literal “me first” attitude in his team communications before finally acquiescing to McLaren’s orders. Is unadulterated ruthlessness a desired trait for an F1 driver who hopes to be world champion? It certainly is. But you have to pick your battles. Norris acted like a driver who’s in the championship hunt, but a simple look at the drivers standings proves otherwise. At the start of the Hungarian Grand Prix, Norris trailed Verstappen 255 to 171, an 84-point deficit.
Yes, at the time, there were 13 races left in the season, which is plenty of time for Norris to erase that deficit, but nearly everything would have to work in his favor, and everything would have to work against Verstappen. Like, Verstappen would have to have an epic meltdown…..in each of the final 13 races. That’s not totally out of the question, especially considering Verstappen’s state of mind in the last few outings. Unfortunately, for Norris’ championship hopes, Verstappen, even in a bad head space, is talented enough to score plenty of points to maintain, if not build, his championship lead.
Finally, did team orders even need to appear at Hungary for McLaren? The team pitted Norris first because they were worried about Hamilton, but Hamilton’s race was holding on to third, not challenging for second. And McLaren could have just pitted Piastri first and been done with it. Piastri would have reclaimed first once Norris pitted, and Norris would have been free to take a run at Piastri in first.
Instead, the Hungarian GP became another instance of McLaren showing its growing pains. Unaccustomed to driving at the front, the team often makes strategy calls like they are panicking or confused rather than from a place of authority.
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