The year was 2007, and McLaren had an all-new driver line-up: rookie Lewis Hamilton and two-time champion Fernando Alonso.<\/p>\n
Much like this year, the team seemed guaranteed to storm to both championships, with young phenom Hamilton teaming up with two-time champion Alonso just as the team peaked in technical ability.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
The only problem was that rookie Hamilton was a much closer match for the established Alonso than the team expected.<\/p>\n
Things started getting complicated.<\/p>\n
Quite apart from the toxic blow-ups, the two spent the season splitting race victories and pinching points from each other, which kept R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen just about within reach despite driving a slower Ferrari.<\/p>\n
Devastating retirements at the third-last and second-last rounds of the season \u2014 Alonso in Japan, Hamilton in China \u2014 allowed Kimi R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen to rapidly close up, putting the title into three-way territory in the finale in Brazil.<\/p>\n
R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen won, Alonso finished and Hamilton finished seventh.<\/p>\n
R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen claimed the championship on 100 points. Hamilton and Alonso ended tied for second place on 109 points.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s eerily similar to this year: Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris spending the season taking points off each other only to find Max Verstappen is within a realistic 40 points of the lead and a genuine threat of embarrassing McLaren at the finish.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the risk, right?\u201d McLaren CEO Zak Brown acknowledged. \u201cIf you have two drivers like in 2007, where they equalled in points and Kimi barely beat them. But that\u2019s how McLaren want to go racing. We want to have two drivers that are capable of winning the championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the flip side, when you get into one and two [drivers], that compromises your constructors championship. So it\u2019s a difficult sport.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere we sit right now, we\u2019re going to give both drivers equal opportunity to try and win the drivers championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re racers. We want to go racing. We want both drivers to have a chance to win the championship, and that comes with some risk, like 2007. But we\u2019re all aware of that and prepared that that could potentially be an outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n
PIT TALK PODCAST: Max Verstappen has taken 64 points out of Oscar Piastri\u2019s title lead in just four rounds on a trajectory that would have him take the title lead before the end of the season. The Dutchman has all the momentum. Can McLaren hit back to ensure the championship double?<\/p>\n
COULD TEAM ORDERS HAVE GIVEN McLAREN A BIGGER BUFFER?<\/p>\n
As Piastri\u2019s title lead has waxed and waned the question has been asked whether it was time McLaren threw its full weight behind the Melburnian as its number one driver.<\/p>\n
For so long, however, the question never really served a purpose. McLaren and its drivers galloped away from the rest of the field during the middle of the campaign at such a rate that it was unimaginable that either Piastri or Norris wouldn\u2019t win the drivers championship.<\/p>\n
Max Verstappen was 97 points behind Piastri at the mid-season break, and his deficit peaked at 104 points after the Dutch Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
If McLaren is all but guaranteed the drivers title, why would it put itself through the internal turmoil of picking a winner?<\/p>\n
But of course now the game has changed. With Verstappen a genuine third party in this championship, there\u2019s a very real risk that the drivers title slips through McLaren\u2019s grasp and into the clutches of the Dutchman, repeating the history of 2007.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to imagine that McLaren isn\u2019t at least idly wondering what the world would have looked like had it already backed a number one.<\/p>\n
With Piastri having led the title standings since round 5 in Saudi Arabia, the Australian is the logical pick over which to hypothesise.<\/p>\n
Ferrari \u2014 synonymous with team orders \u2014 used to take the approach that whichever driver led the championship at a particular race would receive the team\u2019s full backing in the drivers title.<\/p>\n
For argument\u2019s sake, let\u2019s say McLaren chose the mid-season break as the moment \u2014 though given its advantage over Verstappen at the time, it\u2019s clear to see why that wouldn\u2019t even have crossed the team\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s set the baseline numbers first. After the Dutch Grand Prix Piastri (309 points) led Norris (275) by 34 points and Verstappen (205) by 104 points.<\/p>\n
At the Italian Grand Prix a slow Norris pit stop dropped him to third behind Piastri. If the Australian were the nominated lead driver, he\u2019d have kept second place \u2014 or perhaps even have been handed it pre-emptively.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s worth adding here that if Piastri had been the designated leader, he presumably would\u2019ve have been sent out in Q2 to give Norris a slipstream to help his title rival into the top 10, albeit Norris\u2019s last lap probably would have been good enough to make it through without the help.<\/p>\n
New scores: Piastri (327 points) leads Norris (290) by 37 points and Verstappen (230) by 97 points.<\/p>\n
Next came Azerbaijan, where Piastri ended the weekend scoreless by his own hand.<\/p>\n
New scores: Piastri (327 points) leads Norris (296) by 31 points and Verstappen (255) by 72 points.<\/p>\n
Singapore followed, where Piastri was faster in qualifying and got a decent launch from the front row but was barged out of the way at turn 3.<\/p>\n
McLaren retrospectively concluded that Norris was in the wrong and has handed him an undefined internal sporting penalty for the rest of the season, but in this hypothetical Piastri would\u2019ve been handed the place.<\/p>\n
New scores: Piastri (342 points) leads Norris (208) by 34 points and Verstappen (273) by 69 points.<\/p>\n
There was little team orders would have achieved in Austin. It\u2019s possible they would have fought less fiercely at the first turn of the sprint, but improbable given the difficulty of orchestrating the first lap, so for the purposes of this hypothetical, nothing changes.<\/p>\n
New scores: Piastri (352 points) leads Norris (326) by 26 points and Verstappen (306) by 46 points.<\/p>\n
The result of these two changes is that Piastri\u2019s lead over Norris would be almost doubled to 26 points, up from 14 points, but his advantage over Verstappen would be only marginally increased, from 40 points to 46 points.<\/p>\n
The one-two strategy would have served to extend Piastri\u2019s lead over his teammate but would have done little to advantage him over Verstappen.<\/p>\n
Had the team picked Piastri before the mid-season break \u2014 an outlandish scenario given how close he and Norris have been this year \u2014 we could recalculate an even larger gap.<\/p>\n
If Piastri had been handed the win \u2014 or at least the favourable strategy \u2014 in Hungary, had McLaren countered his contentious penalty in Silverstone and had it instructed the drivers to hold position in Imola, Piastri would have had a lead we\u2019d probably be calling unassailable.<\/p>\n
New scores: Piastri (369 points) leads Norris (309) by 60 points and Verstappen (306) by 63 points.<\/p>\n
Instead the story would be about Norris being at imminent risk of losing second in the standings to Verstappen.<\/p>\n
‘Far too close’ – Oscar calls for parity | 03:25<\/p>\n
TEAM ORDERS AREN\u2019T THE PANACEA YOU MIGHT THINK THEY ARE<\/p>\n
But just invoking the premise of team orders does little to influence the championship picture, as Brown hinted at the weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been asked a lot to predict the future,\u201d he said. \u201cThat [team orders] is what we did last year in Baku to start helping Lando, then what ends up happening is Oscar goes and wins the race and Lando helps him.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo this is a pretty unpredictable sport.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was the ultimate irony last year when McLaren reluctantly agreed to back Norris\u2019s title fight only for Piastri to hit peak form, making a mockery of the team\u2019s excruciating deliberations.<\/p>\n
The situation feels reversed this year: Piastri is the lead driver but Norris is in better form.<\/p>\n
Consider the weekend\u2019s race. Had Piastri been prioritised as the number one driver, his race result would not have improved in any way. There was no realistic opportunity for Norris to have helped Piastri.<\/p>\n
There are in reality relatively few ways for a team to benefit a declared number one driver.<\/p>\n
One of them is to automatically give them upgraded parts first, as Verstappen gets at Red Bull Racing. But with no new parts in the pipeline so late in the year, this amounts to no advantage.<\/p>\n
Another is to give the lead driver the beneficial qualifying strategy, usually to go out as late as possible. There\u2019s speculation Piastri already has this benefit as a punishment for Norris hitting him on the first lap in Singapore \u2014 but even then, the benefit is negligible at all but a few tracks. Again, that did nothing to help Piastri this weekend.<\/p>\n
A second driver can also be deployed to run interference to benefit the number one, but if they\u2019re not already in each other\u2019s orbit, there\u2019s inevitably more risk than reward to such an approach.<\/p>\n
For example, Norris finished 21 seconds ahead of Piastri in Austin. The only way he could\u2019ve helped Piastri was by slowing way down and trying to hold up Hamilton in what would have been a bizarre and deeply contentious act that might not have paid off anyway, and even if it had, the team would\u2019ve had to be willing to give up second place to do it.<\/p>\n
Team orders really only work when both drivers are in the same battle, and that happens less often than you might think.<\/p>\n
‘F***** idiot!’ – Sainz & Kimi clash | 00:55<\/p>\n
TEAM ORDERS UNCONSCIONABLE FROM HERE<\/p>\n
It\u2019s unlikely McLaren will pick a winner this year.<\/p>\n
How could it when it has twisted itself in knot after knot in a laudable but excruciating attempt to keep things fair between its drivers?<\/p>\n
To turn around suddenly say that it was all for nothing and that one driver will get priority would make a mockery of the team\u2019s approach to the campaign and tacitly admit it was all for nothing.<\/p>\n
The narrowness of the points gap between its two drivers also complicates matters. If McLaren were to throw its own rules in the bin, the time would\u2019ve been, say after the Dutch Grand Prix, when Norris fell 34 points adrift after his power unit failure, or perhaps even earlier, after Canada, where the gap grew to 22 points when the Briton crashed out of the race.<\/p>\n
Picking a winner now is infinitely harder. Do you back the points leader, Piastri, who remains the championship favourite by dint of leading the title race? Or do you back Norris, who at least in terms of score rate is the driver in better form?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re still so incredibly tight, and we\u2019ve both said we wanted an opportunity to try an fight for the championship because we deserve it,\u201d Piastri said. \u201cI think it\u2019s far too close to start picking one over the other.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Stella did leave the door open for team orders to come into play eventually.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it comes to having to make a call as to a driver, this will only be led by mathematics,\u201d he said, per Autosport.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talked before about the experience and leaning on the experience. I can recall at least 2007 \u2026 in which you go to the last race and it\u2019s actually the third that wins the championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we are not going to close the door unless this is closed by mathematics.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stella\u2019s point about never ruling out a driver highlights another risk of picking a winner so late in the season when it remains so close: the only thing worse than losing the championship because you treated both drivers equally is losing the championship because you backed the wrong driver.<\/p>\n
What happens if you pick Piastri given his status as the points leader but Norris\u2019s momentum puts him ahead? Or what if you pick Norris based on form but Piastri does enough to grind it out by Abu Dhabi?<\/p>\n
Instead Stella is attempting to project a sense of calm. The title fight with Verstappen is close, but the Dutchman is still the outside. McLaren is still one-two in the standings. It has its destiny in its own hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that there are five races and two sprints means that we can also increase the gap to Max \u2014 that\u2019s how I see things,\u201d continued Stella.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have good tracks coming for our car and I think we have more that we could have exploited out of our car and to some extent the drivers \u2014 I think they recognise themselves that they could have done a better job in some of the previous races.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me there\u2019s no mystery. We know that when Max has the material to win he becomes a very serious candidate to win.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t change what our understanding of the situation is. It doesn\u2019t change what we do. We just have to keep maximising the performance and keep executing good weekends.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo definitely we have a large opportunity and the outcome of this season and the drivers championship is in our hands. It\u2019s not in someone else\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the mindset that we want to have and that\u2019s the mindset that we will have.\u201d<\/p>\n
McLaren has chosen its path. It\u2019ll know soon enough whether it was the right one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McLaren started this season hoping history would repeat itself. It\u2019s been 27 years since the team won the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[944,137978,2095,1724,64,14017,63,689,137994,137986,11308,33127,2065,4971,2791,31300,90121,70679,512,137985,2055,21779,16176,16177,137980,9239,11301,2057,817,845,813,816,939,941,10115,1737,137990,823,137000,825,136996,2184,23956,13756,137991,2041,2067,677,137981,137982,36245,2119,137995,137989,137992,137993,14218,137987,136994,14640,45701,137983,137979,11298,137977,75753,85,31283,3370,137976,43353,21760,21784,137984,22294,43342,137996,2614,12000,137988,9657],"class_list":["post-228332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-abu-dhabi","tag-all-new-driver-line-up","tag-america","tag-asia","tag-au","tag-austin","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-baseline-numbers","tag-beneficial-qualifying-strategy","tag-brazil","tag-budapest","tag-canada","tag-carlos-sainz","tag-central-america","tag-championship-battle","tag-championship-favourite","tag-championship-picture","tag-china","tag-clear-car-advantage","tag-constructors-championship","tag-drivers-championship","tag-drivers-championships","tag-drivers-title","tag-drivers-title-slips","tag-eastern-asia","tag-eastern-europe","tag-europe","tag-f1","tag-fernando-alonso","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-hungary","tag-japan","tag-kimi-antonelli","tag-lando-norris","tag-lead-driver","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-closes","tag-max-verstappen","tag-mercedes-rookie","tag-mexico","tag-mexico-city","tag-mid-season-break","tag-nominated-lead-driver","tag-north-america","tag-northern-america","tag-oceania","tag-one-two-strategy","tag-pinching-points","tag-pit-stop","tag-pit-talk","tag-points-gap","tag-points-leader","tag-power-unit-failure","tag-quality-plan","tag-race-result","tag-real-risk","tag-sainz-kimi","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-score-rate","tag-season-splitting-race","tag-second-last-rounds","tag-south-america","tag-splitting-race-victories","tag-sporting-penalty","tag-sports","tag-team-orders","tag-texas","tag-things-fair","tag-title-deficit","tag-title-fight","tag-title-lead","tag-title-look","tag-title-race","tag-title-standings","tag-two-time-champion","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-western-asia","tag-young-phenom","tag-zak-brown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}