The Formula 1 title race is heating up and McLaren’s golden rule \u2014 \u201cLet ’em race\u201d \u2014 risks expanding into a whole rule book.<\/p>\n
Asking Oscar Piastri to give up second place to Lando Norris at the Italian Grand Prix because of a slow pit stop showed how McLaren’s seemingly simple approach risks being bogged down in debates about what’s fair on track.<\/p>\n
The battle between Norris and Piastri will become McLaren’s sole focus if the team can wrap up the constructors\u2019 title Sunday at the Azerbaijan GP in Baku with a record seven races remaining.<\/p>\n
Friday practice brought some unexpected problems, however, as both McLarens bumped the wall.<\/p>\n
McLaren leads by 337 points and takes the title if one driver wins and the other is second or third, which would end the faint mathematical chances of Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull.<\/p>\n
It’s a big contrast to last year when McLaren held off Ferrari in the final race of the season to win the constructors\u2019 title for the first time in 26 years. \u201cIt\u2019s a pretty remarkable position that we\u2019re in,\u201d Piastri said. \u201cA very proud moment for everybody and myself included.\u201d<\/p>\n
Norris and Hamilton fastest in practice<\/p>\n
It didn’t go all McLaren’s way in Friday practice after Norris and Piastri bumped the barriers in the second session.<\/p>\n
Norris said it was \u201ccostly\u201d and \u201cannoying\u201d that he had to limp back to the pits after hitting the wall with the rear left wheel midway through the session, and didn\u2019t come back out. Piastri had his own brush with the barrier and was 12th, two places behind Norris.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was feeling good until then,\u201d Norris said of his incident. “I\u2019d rather have this and push and find the limits than not push at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time, .074 of a second ahead of his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc, with George Russell third for Mercedes after overcoming an illness to take part.<\/p>\n
Norris led the way in first practice by .310 of a second from Piastri, who needed McLaren’s mechanics to check a problem with his car. Leclerc was third. The session was stopped for over 20 minutes while damage to a trackside curb was fixed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the pace is there, it\u2019s just not the easiest to get the most out of it,\u201d Piastri said.<\/p>\n
Piastri also faced an investigation for allegedly failing to slow for yellow flags in the second session. Similar cases have prompted grid penalties in the past, but Piastri got only a reprimand because the yellow flag was withdrawn a split second after the signal was first visible to him.<\/p>\n
McLaren \u2018aligned\u2019 on its rules<\/p>\n
Was swapping the cars in Italy the best way for McLaren to make up for a team mistake beyond Norris’ control? Or was Piastri punished for something that’s \u201cjust part of racing,\u201d as he suggested over the radio?<\/p>\n
The Monza decision has prompted yet more discussion at McLaren about the best way to race.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve again had a lot of discussions about how we want to go racing and a lot of that is to stay for us,\u201d Piastri said, adding that giving away the details could allow rival teams to exploit McLaren’s approach. “I do think we have enough freedom to control our own destiny in the championship.”<\/p>\n
That call left Piastri with a lead of 31 points, instead of 37. Expect to hear a lot more about it at the end of the season if that six-point swing decides the title.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t plan for every single scenario that\u2019s going to happen, but I think we\u2019re very aligned,” Piastri said. “Ultimately I respect the team\u2019s decisions and trust that they’ll certainly do their best to make the right ones.\u201d<\/p>\n
Azerbaijan is a place where team rivalry has boiled over before.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2018, it was where up-and-coming challenger Max Verstappen collided with established contender Daniel Ricciardo. It forced Red Bull into a rethink of its \u201cno team orders\u201d approach \u2014 not dissimilar to McLaren’s \u201clet ’em race\u201d \u2014 and set the two drivers on opposite trajectories.<\/p>\n
Ricciardo was only on the podium once more that season, lost out to Verstappen by 79 points and left the team at the end of 2018. Verstappen hasn’t had a teammate who’s challenged him since.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The gap between him and Yuki Tsunoda is vast \u2014 230 points to 12.<\/p>\n
Red Bull heads into Azerbaijan widely expected to promote Isack Hadjar, whose\u00a0podium finish in the Netherlands\u00a0was an exclamation point in a strong rookie season, to Tsunoda’s seat for 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Formula 1 title race is heating up and McLaren’s golden rule \u2014 \u201cLet ’em race\u201d \u2014 risks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-155874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}