Australian F1 legend Alan Jones has described claims McLaren is favouring Lando Norris over Oscar Piastri as “bulls**t.”
The loss of Piastri’s form combined with McLaren’s ‘papaya rules’ had some conspiracy theorists suggesting the team were giving preferential treatment to Norris but Jones has dismissed that hypothesis.
Alan Jones dimisses McLaren theory over Oscar Piastri
Piastri’s form has taken an undeniable nose dive since the Azerbaijan Grand Prix and having led the championship since the fifth race of the season, he now trails his teammate by 24 points with three grands prix remaining.
That dip, combined with incidents such as Monza where Piastri was ordered to move aside for Norris, have some fans believing the Briton is the team’s favourite, but Jones has labelled that as nonsense.
“I think it’s the greatest load of nonsense of all time,” Jones told ABC. “Every single season we come across this bulls**t. Every time.
“It’s either Mark Webber against [Sebastian] Vettel or it’s somebody [else]. It’s always at them ‘oh he’s got a better car than me’ or ‘he’s getting preferential treatment’, it’s absolute crap.
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“These teams don’t spend absolute fortunes travelling halfway around the world to stymie one car or give preference to the other.
“I can assure you both these cars are getting the same sort of treatment. I know Zak Brown very well, he’s a good racer, and he’d be giving both these blokes equal chances.”
Jones suggested that some people just like to complain and suggested that half of them know nothing about the sport.
“I think that if it was tennis, they’d be saying they’re giving the bloke the wrong racket or something,” Jones continued. “It’s just rubbish.
“Then you get all the rare experts coming out of the woodwork, with their opinions on this, that and the other thing. Half of them wouldn’t know one end of a car from another but they’re free to give their advice whether it’s needed or not. It’s just nonsense.”
Jones is not alone in dismissing the conspiracy theory with former Williams boss Claire Williams suggesting the team’s sole focus is doing best by its drivers.
“It’s not an easy piece of work,” she told talkSPORT.
“I think that at McLaren, in Lando and Oscar, they’ve got two quite relaxed drivers. But equally, they’re both competitive. They both have fought to get to where they are in Formula 1 today.
“And both of their dreams for many, many years will have always been to win a Drivers’ Championship and they will take that fight to each other on the racetrack. But trying to manage that isn’t an easy piece of work.
“You’re going to have best-laid plans going into every grand prix. You’re going to have the conversations with your drivers to keep it clean, keep it on the racetrack.
“But, you know, racing is a bit of a crazy business. You don’t know what’s going to happen when the lights go out.
“It’s not easy to manage and we can all look on a Monday and go ‘why did they make that decision, why did they do that?’
“But all I can say is McLaren on the pit wall will always have the best intentions and try to do the best thing for their drivers on a Sunday afternoon.”
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