Former Red Bull driver claims McLaren 'manipulated' Italian GP result with team orders

Former Red Bull driver David Coulthard has claimed that McLaren 'manipulated' the F1 Italian Grand Prix results with its controversial team orders. The 13-time Grand Prix winner emphasized that while the team had the "right" to do what they did, it wasn't in the best interest of promoting competitive, wheel-to-wheel racing, which F1 is known for.

The situation arose in the closing stages of the 53-lap race at Monza. On lap 45, McLaren pitted Oscar Piastri, in P3, for fresh Soft tires, and promised Lando Norris, who ran most of the race in P2, that he wouldn't be undercut. However, when Norris pitted a lap later, a botch-up on his front left tire led to a slow 5.9-second stop.

Piastri benefited from the inadvertent undercut to inherit P2, which the Andrea Stella-led team had to reverse by enforcing team orders on lap 49. David Coulthard, who raced for McLaren for nine years and won 13 races in that period before concluding his career with a four-year Red Bull stint, was unhappy with the Woking outfit's driver swap at Monza.

"They obviously felt that the race was neutralised with Lando having the advantage coming into the pit stop," the British driver told Channel 4 (via PlanetF1). "They feel that he’s been disadvantaged because of the team, not because of something that Oscar has done on track, and then they’ve asked him to make the switch. On one hand, I get it, because they’ve been playing that card since last year. They focus on trying to win the Constructors’ Championship."

However, Coulthard couldn't make sense of McLaren swapping its drivers just because of a faulty pit stop, which is part and parcel of racing.

"Inside the racer and inside the little boy that grew up a fan of the sport, I want to see racing wheel-to-wheel. And yes, sometimes engines will blow up. Yes, sometimes you’ll get involved in an incident. This just feels a little bit manipulating... manipulating the result, and that feels uncomfortable, I have to say."

With Lando Norris finishing in P2, he reduced the gap to Oscar Piastri in the drivers' championship from 34 to 31 points. It was a six-point swing, which could've landed in Piastri's lap had he not given in to the team orders, and increased the gap from 34 to 37 points.

Max Verstappen dominated the Italian GP, winning with a 19-second lead over Norris. However, he remains out of the picture for a fifth consecutive F1 title this season, with the McLaren pairing far ahead in the drivers' standings.

Italian GP team orders were a matter of "fairness" and "principle" for McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella

McLaren F1 Team Principal Andrea Stella - Source: Getty

McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella had to answer a lot of reporters after the team's questionable team orders at Monza, which sparked controversy. He emphasized that the pit stop situation wasn't just about "fairness," but also about the team's principles and how it wants its drivers to go racing.

"I think that the pitstop situation is not only a matter of fairness, it's a matter of consistency with our principles," Stella said via Autosport. "And wherever 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."

He further explained the pit stop situation and how the order of Piastri coming in for a tire change before Norris was to cover Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, who was running in P4.

"The situation whereby we swap the drivers is not only related to the pitstop, and it is useful that I clarify this. It's also related to the fact that we wanted to sequence the pitstop of the two cars by stopping Oscar first and then Lando. We had the clear intent that this 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."

Oscar Piastri, who gave in to the team orders and let Lando Norris by, emphasized the same message in the post-race press conference. He highlighted that the situation warranted a swap, and he did it to "protect" the people on the team, including the pit crew members, and preserve McLaren's culture.