Toto Wolff has issued a stark warning to McLaren after setting what he felt was “a precedent” in its driver switch during the Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix.
The papaya squad of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were running in second and third behind Max Verstappen in the latter stages of Sunday’s race at Monza.
With both still yet to pit, Norris offered to let Piastri pit first, to which the team agreed, citing its wish to keep the Australian in third place ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.
Norris pitted a lap later, but a dilatory stop, owing to a slow left-front wheel gun, saw him emerge behind Piastri.
The team made the call to switch the drivers back into the positions they had previously been in, with Piastri allowing Norris back through into second.
After the race, team boss Andrea Stella, Piastri and Norris all defended the call, the latter saying that it would be “pretty stupid just to assume that kind of thing and just say that’s the precedent you set.”
But Wolff disagreed with the Brit’s take on the situation, telling media including Motorsport Week that that was exactly what it was.
“There is no right and there is no wrong, and I’m curious to see how that pans out,” the Austrian said. “You set a precedent that is very difficult to undo.
“What if the team does another mistake and it’s not a pitstop… do you switch them around?
“But then equally, because of a team mistake, making a driver that is trying to catch up lose the points is not fair either.
“So, I think we are going to get our response of whether that was right today towards the end of the season when it heats up.”
Wheatley impressed with McLaren amid ‘hard lessons’
Norris said there was a difference in every potential scenario, and intimated that they had all been discussed beforehand to ensure clarity and transparency if one was to become a reality.
Another team boss who commented on the situation, Sauber’s Jonathan Wheatley, believed that this was highly likely.
“They would have obviously talked about how they were going to go about racing, and I guess they had a conversation that if there was a team error they’d swapped positions,” he told media including Motorsport Week.
“They obviously learned a lot of hard lessons last year. I’ve been very impressed with how they managed the two drivers fighting in the championship this year, and I think they were ahead of it.
“They weren’t having a discussion in the race, so it’s clearly something they talked about before.”
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