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Welcome back to Prime Tire. If you read this before you opened The Pulse, please go back and mark this as unread. The Pulse was sent out first. McLaren says this is only fair.
I’m Patrick, and Madeline Coleman will be along shortly. Let’s get to a rant.
I Didn’t Like ThatMcLaren’s team orders are getting annoying
McLaren’s decision to order Oscar Piastri to hand second place back to Lando Norris at the Italian Grand Prix was silly. His decision to agree was sillier. I’ve stewed on this for two days, and Luke Smith’s column this morning backs me up. So let’s dig in.
During the race, Norris suffered a slow pit stop due to a wheel-fitting issue that dropped him behind his teammate Piastri on track. McLaren then ordered Piastri to let Norris pass.
Team principal Andrea Stella explained that the plan was never to change positions because of pit sequencing. McLaren wanted a pass to happen through on-track racing. The swap back result preserved a relatively similar gap as we had after the Dutch GP:
But pit stops are part of racing — Piastri acknowledged this on team radio. When a mechanic fails to fit a wheel properly, it’s not a cosmic injustice requiring correction; it’s motorsport. Mistakes happen, drivers capitalize. What really rubs me the wrong way is the artificiality of the decision.
Piastri says he wouldn’t regret acceding even if it costs him the title. I don’t believe him. I know I would regret it. Surely, most drivers would.
Trust other athletes’ instincts, not mine. Max Verstappen’s laughing reaction revealed how F1’s reigning champion viewed it. And NBA star Joel Embiid posted what I assume most non-F1 athletes were thinking:
These papaya rules are something else lmao….. Oscar is a better man than me
— Joel Embiid (@JoelEmbiid) September 7, 2025
It’s hard to understand! It goes against the natural competitive spirit that any athlete feels.
McLaren has drawn the line at something affecting their drivers through no fault of their own. A team error that makes the positioning unfair. But when Piastri found himself ahead through racing circumstances, that advantage was fair. McLaren reaching for the reset button was what felt unfair. It sanitized the authenticity that makes racing compelling.
McLaren’s approach does make business sense. Happy drivers, team unity, sustained success. But the sport’s greatest, most beloved champions weren’t always team players, but ruthless competitors. As Luke noted, in one example, Sebastian Vettel famously ignored team orders to beat Mark Webber at the 2013 Malaysian Grand Prix, later saying, “I was faster, I passed him, I won.”
That mentality helped deliver four consecutive championships. It made the fight worth watching.
Racing thrives on tension and split-second moments that define races. In my view, the principled approach is to let whatever happens, happen.
Hey! Listen!New philosophy pays off for Red Bull
Verstappen dominated at Monza this weekend, winning by nearly 20 seconds in what felt like a throwback to his unstoppable 2023 form. After months of struggling with car balance issues that left him feeling like “a passenger,” Red Bull finally cracked the code by doing something radical: It listened to its driver instead of their simulators.
As my colleague Madeline writes, the team had been throwing extreme setup changes at the car all season, essentially admitting they didn’t understand what was wrong. This time, it leaned more on Verstappen’s feedback and less on data, bringing track-specific upgrades that actually worked.
“It was nice, for once,” Verstappen said post-race, probably the most relaxed we’ve seen him in months.
The big question now is whether this was just a Monza fluke or if Red Bull has genuinely solved its car problems. Team boss Laurent Mekies thinks it’s “probably Monza-specific,” but hey — after watching McLaren win for months, we’ll take any shakeup we can get. Head here for more on Red Bull’s mindset shift.
And now off to Madeline in the paddock!
Why Yuki Tsunoda didn’t keep up with Verstappen
Yuki Tsunoda has been making progress in each race weekend, though it may not always be evident in the results. Take qualifying on Saturday, for instance. The Japanese driver said he was consistently behind Verstappen, only about two-tenths of a second off the Dutchman’s pace, in the early qualifying stages. But in Q3, he led the pack, which typically is what you want to avoid at a track like Monza. Tows can be powerful gamechangers, and Tsunoda didn’t have one.
What happened Sunday to keep Tsunoda nowhere near Verstappen’s level was no fault of his own. Midway through the race, Liam Lawson tried to overtake Tsunoda around the outside, and his front left tire tagged the back right tire of the Red Bull car, causing damage to Tsunoda’s car, the Red Bull driver said post-race. As Tsunoda pointed out, Lawson wasn’t fighting for points when this battle occurred.
Tsunoda was unable to work his way into the points after starting ninth and running a medium-hard strategy, because his pace was gone after picking up the damage from that battle. He finished the race in P13.
Another detail flew a bit under the radar during the Italian GP weekend: Tsunoda and Verstappen didn’t have the same car specifications again. Earlier this season, they had different floor specifications, and Tsunoda didn’t receive the same spec until Hungary, before the summer break. This past weekend, in Monza, they had different floor specifications, with Verstappen running the upgrade.
“It’s not like (the) difference I had before,” Tsunoda said. “This upgrade, I would say, is not huge.”
Mekies described it as “a small update,” and the hope is for both cars to be fitted with the upgrade for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Vroom, vroomF1’s fastest weekend ever
It’s no surprise that when you come to a track dubbed F1’s “Temple of Speed,” you get fast races. We just happened to get three versions of it this last weekend, and I thought it was neat.
A new fastest lap: Verstappen delivered a stormer of a lap time to qualify on pole: 1:18.792 seconds at an average speed of 164.47 miles per hour. Luke broke down that lap here. True magic.
A new fastest average race speed: 250.706 kilometers per hour (155.781 mph), again set by the race winner Verstappen. That shattered Michael Schumacher’s 22-year record at Monza of 247.585 kilometers per hour (153.842 mph).
A new fastest race time: 1 hour, 13 minutes, 24.325 seconds. The shortest time to complete a full Grand Prix without red flags.
Outside the Points
😱 Ollie Bearman, like his Haas predecessor, is on the verge of a race ban.
📝 The Dutch GP stewards will meet on Friday to decide on Williams’ right of review over Carlos Sainz’s 10-second Zandvoort penalty.
🎢 And, finally, Luke delved into why Lewis Hamilton’s first weekend at Monza with Ferrari was a “roller coaster.”
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(Top photo: Joe Portlock/Getty Images)