{"id":327203,"date":"2025-12-04T13:15:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T13:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/327203\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T13:15:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T13:15:07","slug":"not-fair-russell-criticises-mclarens-abu-dhabi-team-order-stance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/327203\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Not fair\u2019 – Russell criticises McLaren\u2019s Abu Dhabi team order stance"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Russell believes McLaren\u2019s Abu Dhabi team order stance isn\u2019t \u201cacceptable or reasonable\u201d, as Oscar Piastri could be moved aside to help Lando Norris\u2019s title bid.<\/a><\/p>\n

McLaren has resisted favouring one of its drivers despite Max Verstappen\u2019s ever-threatening title challenge, and it won\u2019t explicitly favour Norris for Abu Dhabi despite his 16-point advantage over Piastri, with Verstappen between them, 12 points adrift. <\/p>\n

But on the eve of the Abu Dhabi GP, The Race revealed McLaren has opened the door to implementing team orders on Sunday if it becomes clear it\u2019s the only way for a McLaren driver to win the title.<\/p>\n

One such scenario could be if Verstappen is leading and Piastri and Norris are running third and fourth, then a swap would ensure Norris wins the title instead of Verstappen. <\/p>\n

The McLaren drivers say this hasn\u2019t yet been discussed with them but those conversations will take place later in the weekend. <\/p>\n

But in the view of Russell – who could act as a potential spoiler in the title fight should Mercedes have the pace to threaten McLaren and Red Bull this weekend – McLaren issuing such an order to Piastri wouldn\u2019t be fair. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s acceptable or reasonable to ask a driver who also has a shot of the championship in the very last race to move over for your team-mate,\u201d Russell said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think if it\u2019s in other seasons gone by, let\u2019s say Checo [Perez] and Max [at Red Bull] or, you know, [Rubens] Barrichello and [Michael] Schumacher [at Ferrari], clearly when one driver is going for the championship and the guy who doesn\u2019t have a shot of winning the championship moves over, that is absolutely reasonable – I think every single driver would do that. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut for me, I don\u2019t think it would be fair at all [this year]. I think they both need to be given a shot. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd if they lose out of because of it, you just need to say the other guy did a better job and that\u2019s racing. That\u2019s how it should be.\u201d <\/p>\n

Norris would \u2018love\u2019 team orders he won\u2019t ask for <\/p>\n

Norris and Piastri were sat side-by-side in F1\u2019s pre-event title contender press conference.<\/p>\n

Norris was asked about the prospect of team orders in the finale. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not been discussed, honestly, I would love it, but I don\u2019t think I would ask it because I don\u2019t know\u2026it\u2019s up to Oscar if he\u2019d allow it, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s necessarily down to me,\u201d Norris said. <\/p>\n

\u201cSame if it was the other way around, would I be willing to or not? Personally I think I would just because I feel like I\u2019m always like that and that\u2019s just how I am. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s not really up to me. I\u2019m not going to ask it, I don\u2019t want to ask it, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s necessarily a fair question. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf that\u2019s how it ends and Max wins, then that\u2019s it. Congrats to him, look forward to next year, doesn\u2019t change anything, doesn\u2019t change my life, he\u2019ll deserve it over us.\u201d <\/p>\n

As for Piastri, he said \u201cI don\u2019t really have an answer until I know what\u2019s expected of me\u201d, given McLaren hasn\u2019t had those discussions with its drivers yet. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Russell believes McLaren\u2019s Abu Dhabi team order stance isn\u2019t \u201cacceptable or reasonable\u201d, as Oscar Piastri could be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-327203","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327203","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=327203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}