Despite widespread criticism, McLaren stands by its decision to order Oscar Piastri to yield position to his teammate.
Other than being soundly beaten by Max Verstappen, McLaren added to its Monza misery by controversially calling on championship leader Piastri to hand second place over to Lando Norris.
Having opted to extend both drivers opening stints, with Norris running second and Piastri third, it was the Briton who had first call in terms of pitting. However, with Leclerc having previously stopped and increasingly a threat to the Australian, Norris was asked if he would defer to his teammate. He agreed.
Piastri stopped on Lap 45 (of 53) while Norris stopped a lap later.
Unfortunately a problem with the left-front wheel-gun meant that Norris lost several seconds during the stop and emerged behind the Australian, both having now been passed by Max Verstappen who had pitted on Lap 37.
It was then McLaren made the controversial decision to tell Piastri to hand the position back to his teammate.
"Oscar this is a bit like Hungary last year," Piastri's engineer Tom Stallard told the Australian. "We pitted in this order for team reasons. Please let Lando pass and you're free to race."
Meanwhile, Norris's engineer, Will Jospeph was telling the Briton: "Lando, we're going to re-establish the order. So he will let you past, then you'll be free to race. He might let you through into Turn 1 this time around."
"We said that a slow pit stop was part of racing," argued Piastri. "I don't really get what's changed here. But if you really want to do it then I'll do it."
"Let's have Strat 7," said Stallard. "Suggest to let him through into Turn 1. Let through into Turn 1ne. This is the same as Hungary last year. I know it's painful, but you will have five laps remaining from now."
Piastri duly obliged, and though free to race, with Norris advised that his teammate would have DRS, they held position until the flag, at which point Jospeh told the Briton: "Apologies about the stop."
While there was no apparent bad feeling between the drivers in the moments after the race or in the cool down room, where they were seen laughing, social media went into meltdown (no doubt much to Liberty Media's delight).
"I think that the pit stop situation is not only a matter of fairness, it's a matter of consistency with our principles," explained team boss Andrea Stella.
"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 continued. "The situation whereby we swap the drivers is not only related to the pit stop, 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.
"So we pursued the team interest," he insisted, "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 this is not going to deliver a swap of positions. The fact that we went first with Oscar, compounded by the slow pit stop of Lando, then led to a swap of positions, and we thought it was absolutely the right thing to go back to the situation pre-existing 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," he added. "We will also review 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."
Asked about Hungary last year, where the positions were reversed and Norris was far more unwilling to oblige, Stella said: "The difference from Hungary was the sequence compounded by the slow stop. You could argue that from the outside that's a very different set of circumstances. It would be slightly different because Lando would have still been ahead had the pitstop gone as planned."
"It's something that we'll discuss," said a diplomatic Piastri at race end, "we have discussed it before.
"I think today was a fair request," he added. "Lando qualified ahead, was ahead the whole race and lost that spot through no fault of his own.
"I said what I had to say on the radio, and once I got the second request, then I'm not going to go against the team, I think there's a lot of people to protect and a culture to protect outside of just Lando and ultimately that's a very important thing going forward."
"We're not idiots," said Norris, "we have plans for different things. If there were four cars between me and Oscar, of course he's not going to let me back past. But in a situation where we weren't racing, in a situation where we can just be fair, then you'd expect to be fair as a team. They don't want to be the reason to upset one driver or another through no fault of their own, and today was not my fault.
"If I came flat out into my pit box and I hit all my mechanics out the way, I don't expect to get the position back," he added. "But today was out of my control.
"In the end, I don't want it to win this way, through getting given positions or anything like that. And the same thing with Oscar. But we don't want to lose a win like that either. We do what we think is correct as a team, no matter what you say or what your opinions are, and we stick to doing it our way."
However, like his teammate, and with the stakes increasing with every race that passes, Norris admits that the situation needs reviewing.
Check out our Sunday gallery from Monza here.
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