Max Verstappen took victory at the Italian Grand Prix with a dominant drive at Monza for Red Bull but, as the world champion hared across the finish line, the intra-team psychodrama at McLaren was playing out once more in his wake and its theatrical head‑to‑head was greeted with some disdain in motor racing’s colosseum.

Having fought a frenetic scrap on the opening laps, during which he lost and regained the lead, Verstappen went on to pound out a consummate run to the flag and in so doing beat the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri into second and third. The two title protagonists finished thus only after McLaren once more imposed orders on their drivers in the closing stages that proved controversial.

The debrief for McLaren will once more likely extend into the night, as the team pursued their goal of being scrupulously fair to both ­drivers. Some fans at Monza made their ­feelings clear, booing Norris as he stepped on to the podium, unhappy with how this particular brand of bread and circus had been stage-managed. Although of course the irony of Ferrari fans expressing displeasure at the application of team orders was of the particularly delicious variety.

Verstappen was long gone up the road when it happened but his championship chances are similarly distant while Piastri and Norris are locked in a struggle for the title. Piastri led by 34 points going into the GP and Norris knows he must claw points back from his teammate at every opportunity.

So far so good then when he maintained his place in second in front of the Australian for the vast majority of the race, a minor swing of three points but what he required. The team had opted to keep Norris and Piastri out long to see if they could gain a free stop under the safety car but when none materialised they brought them in, choosing Piastri first but when Norris came in a lap later there was calamity once more.

The British driver, who was forced to retire at the last round because of an oil leak – ceding 25 points to his teammate – must be ­wondering which deity he has offended and quite how much blood-letting there must be before they are sated. On his stop it took two attempts to secure the left‑front wheel. Norris sat helpless until more than five ­seconds had passed and he could clear his marks. When he emerged from the pit lane, Piastri was in front, with ­Norris’s title chances seemingly reeling in another stroke of poor fortune. McLaren, though,wasted no time wading in.

They swiftly issued orders to ­Piastri to give the place back, ­telling their driver it was similar to the ­scenario in Hungary last year when ­Norris gave Piastri back the lead after he had gained it through stopping first from behind his teammate.

Piastri remarkably and magnanimously took the decision on the chin, albeit while noting: “I mean, we said a slow pit stop was part of racing, I don’t get it.” He then duly gave Norris the place back with four laps to go. “I think we did the right thing,” Piastri’s engineer, Tom Stallard, told him.

Max Verstappen leads into the first corner ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. Photograph: Jakub Porzycki/Reuters

The McLaren team principal, Andrea Stella, explained later that it was the team’s commitment to ­fairness that had prompted the decision. They had wanted the positions to be unaffected by the pit stops and there was a two-point rationale to stopping Piastri first.

That it was to cover off Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in fourth, although with the Monegasque driver 29sec in arrears this seemed over cautious but more importantly that if Norris was pitted first and a safety car or red flag followed he would have lost his place through no fault of his own. ­Erring then for caution and an effort to play it fair, Norris’s slow stop threw a ­spanner in the works.

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“The pit stop situation is not only a matter of fairness, it’s a matter of consistency with our principles,” Stella said. “However the championship goes, what’s important is the championship runs within the principles and the racing fairness we have at McLaren. The fact that we went first with Oscar, compounded by the slow pit stop with Lando, led to a swap of positions and we thought it was absolutely the right thing to go back to the situation pre-existing the pit stop and then let the guys race.”

They duly rectified it and both drivers accepted it – Piastri doubtless also considering the big picture. He lost only three points, still leads ­Norris by 31 and has established another major credit with the team that he may yet cash.

However the methodology of quite how McLaren manages said accounts might be becoming somewhat labyrinthine. The risk is setting precedents that might become enormously complicated should the fight become tight at the end. Indeed, should it come down to as little as three points Monza will loom large.

It is hard to imagine almost any driver pairing that would take this with the Asme equanimity as Norris and Piastri, now or in the past. Indeed Verstappen’s reaction when he was told of the swap perhaps summed up what many were thinking. “Just because of a slow pit stop?” he said laughing with no little incredulity when told, as he powered to victory in front of the team who seem intent on taking the title with positively Stakhanovite evenhandedness.

Leclerc finished fourth for Ferrari, with Lewis Hamilton putting in a credible run at his debut in Monza for the Scuderia, moving from 10th to sixth place, and George Russell taking fifth for Mercedes.