Calum Nicholas, the former Red Bull mechanic, says it “feels unjust” that McLaren driver Lando Norris was booed during the podium ceremony at the Italian Grand Prix.
McLaren found itself at the centre of a team orders drama in the closing laps at Monza on Sunday as Norris and teammate Oscar Piastri pitted from second and third in quick succession.
Lando Norris booing ‘feels unjust’ after McLaren team orders
The team parted from standard convention by pitting Piastri first on Lap 45 despite him trailing Norris at the time to protect the Australian from the threat of fourth-placed Charles Leclerc.
Norris followed in a lap later, but a slow stop saw him drop behind Piastri.
McLaren controversially instructed Piastri to return second place to Norris with the championship leader obeying the request.
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Piastri’s lead over Norris at the top of the drivers’ standings has been reduced to 31 points with eight rounds of the F1 2025 season remaining.
Norris was promptly booed during the podium ceremony at Monza with fans left unimpressed by McLaren’s decision to swap positions.
Taking to social media after the race, former Red Bull mechanic Nicholas said it was “unjust” that Norris was subjected to such a hostile response on the podium having done “absolutely nothing wrong.”
He added that the same applied to Piastri, who had “benefited from something outside of his control” before McLaren’s call to reverse the order.
Nicholas wrote: “I feel for both McLaren drivers, but I have to say, this policy of “two No.1’s” was always going to suck for both of them..
“Lando did absolutely nothing wrong, got unlucky with a bad pitstop (that’s racing), and then gets booed on the podium because of a decision taken on the pit wall.
“Feels unjust for the situation he found himself in.
“Oscar did absolutely nothing wrong, drove his race, and benefited from something outside of his control (that’s racing), but then has to give it up to make it ‘fair’
“Fair?? This is motor racing!!
“Good luck, bad luck, it’s all part of it, I’ve been on both sides of it at times.
“I don’t like the idea of team orders to ‘sanitise’ the racing. It strips the sport of its unpredictability.
“I can’t think of a past world champion that would have obeyed that order in that situation, but I understand why Oscar did.
“There’s still a long way to go.”
Nicholas’s comments come after Zak Brown, the McLaren chief executive, praised the “great teamwork and respect” demonstrated by Piastri and Norris at Monza as the team closes in on a second successive Constructors’ title.
Brown wrote on social media: “P2 & P3 in Monza!
“Great teamwork and respect from Lando & Oscar secures another double podium and valuable points. We keep pushing as a team, focus now on Baku.”
More on Lando Norris and McLaren from PlanetF1.com
Meanwhile, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella claimed that the decision to invert the cars in the closing laps was a case of the team sticking to its “principles.”
He told PlanetF1.com’s Thomas Maher and other publications at Monza: “I think that the pit stop situation is not only a matter of fairness, it’s a matter of consistency with our principles.
“However the championship goes, what’s important is that the championship runs within the principles and the racing values that we have at McLaren and that we have created together with our drivers.
“The situation whereby we swapped the drivers is not only related to the pit stop.
“And this is pretty useful that I clarified, it’s also related to the fact that we wanted to sequence the pit stop of the two cars by stopping Oscar first and then Lando – and we had the clear intent that these should have not led to a swap of position.
“It was just done because we were covering Leclerc and, at the same time, we were waiting until the last possible moment to see if there had been a red flag or a Safety Car.
“So we pursued the team interest. And to capitalise as much as possible on this interest, we needed to go first with Oscar, then with Lando.
“But [the] clear intent was [that] this is not going to deliver a swap of positions.
“So the fact that we went first with Oscar, compounded by the slow pit stop of Lando, then led to a swap of positions, we thought it was absolutely the right thing to go back to the situation, pre-existing at the pit stop, and then let the guys race.
“This is what we did and this is what we think is in compliance with our principles.
“We will review the case. We will review also the situation whereby it was a slow pit stop in isolation.
“We already have our principles in relation to that. We will review our principles in relation to that and reinforce the direction, if this is in agreement with our drivers.”
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