Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has admitted McLaren is “between a rock and a hard place” when opting whether to implement team orders in the 2024 Formula 1 season.
McLaren squandering another race win at the Italian Grand Prix has brought back into the spotlight the discussion surrounding the team not prioritising Lando Norris.
Norris managed to eradicate Max Verstappen’s points advantage to 62 points, but the Briton was unable to capitalise on pole position as he slumped to third position.
The Briton’s win chances were dashed on the opening lap when team-mate Oscar Piastri launched a bold move around Turn 4, which allowed Charles Leclerc through.
McLaren boss Andrea Stella has disclosed that he plans to review whether Piastri’s pass – which cost it a 1-2 on track – complied with the team’s rules of engagement.
The Italian also acknowledged that Norris, who is 46 points above Piastri, represents McLaren’s best title hopeful and hinted that team orders could be imposed soon.
Wolff, who has dealt with squabbling team-mates at Mercedes in a title fight, has claimed that it can’t be understated how tough McLaren’s predicament is to manage.
“I think as a racing team that is battling at the front suddenly, you are between a rock and a hard place because on one side they are racers like we are racers,” he said.
“We want to make sure that the best man wins but on the other side when it starts to become dysfunctional and impacting your team performance then how do you react to that?
“The team is always on the losing end because if you freeze positions and have team orders then you have maybe not what our racing soul wants to do but the rational side needs to prevail.
“At the end you don’t want to lose out on a championship by three or five points that you could have easily made.
“So walking that tightrope is so difficult and there is no universal truth of how to handle it.”
Wolff has indicated that Stella, who has been in charge since late 2022, must be willing to harden his stance on racing in order to help McLaren get titles over the line.
“There is nobody that understands sport more than Andrea,” Wolff added.
“He has seen it all of that pan out in front of his eyes multiple times at Ferrari [between 2000 and 2014].
“He has that racers’ soul that doesn’t want to do it and wants to let them race, but I think they are going to come to some conclusion after this race, how are we handling this?
“This is when we started to introduce the rules of engagement and then we changed the wording to racing intent because ‘rules’ was too harsh as a word for the drivers.”
