Following their impressive victory in the chaotic opening race of the 2025 season, team principal Andrea Stella has addressed the team orders that McLaren imposed on Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris during the F1 Australian GP on Sunday.
McLaren found themselves involved in several controversies over team orders last season as they clinched the Constructors’ crown after 26 years. Ahead of the first race in Melbourne, both drivers had stated that they were free to race each other as long as they abided by the team’s strict rules of engagement.
Piastri, who was setting rapid lap times and was within the DRS range of race leader Norris on Sunday, was asked to hold position on Lap 31 as both drivers made their way through the traffic. By the time McLaren allowed them to race each other again a lap later, the Australian had made a mistake at Turn 6 and fallen behind by nearly three seconds.
Stella justifies team order given to Piastri to hold position
When asked in his print media session to clarify afterwards whether the team order for holding position that they imposed on Piastri was only applicable for a few laps or the whole race, Stella stated McLaren were cautious given that both drivers were lapping the backmarkers and that their intermediate tyres were relatively worn out by then.
The Italian revealed that those factors, along with the threat of imminent rain, prompted their decision to neutralise the racing between the teammates for a little while. At the same time, Stella underscored the team orders that allowed Piastri to chase Norris for the lead of the F1 Australian GP once the drivers had successfully cleared the traffic and the McLaren pit wall had assessed the weather conditions.
“During the race, at some stage, we had to go relatively soon through some backmarkers, while the cars were close together and the conditions on track were still a little tricky with intermediate tyres that were running down a bit in terms of their rubber on. And, at the same time we were receiving some updates on the weather forecast.
“So, we had the going through the backmarkers and the update on the weather forecast that led us to close for a short period of time the internal racing between our two drivers until we had clarity as to the weather prediction, what this meant for how we should’ve used the tyres, and then until we had closed the matter of overtaking the backmarkers.
“Once they completed this and we assessed the weather, then we reopened the racing.”
Both drivers were aware of McLaren potentially allowing them to race again
In terms of whether the team had informed the drivers about the reassessment and the possibility of them resuming the battle for the race lead after the initial instruction, Stella responded that the pit wall had relayed both team orders to Piastri and Norris clearly during the F1 Australian GP.
Revealing that even the pit wall wasn’t certain when they would receive a more definitive forecast about the inclement weather conditions, the 54-year-old asserted that both drivers were aware of the team’s efforts to re-establish the previous racing momentum as soon as possible.
“The drivers were aware when we gave the team order to hold positions and then they were aware when we told them to be free to race.
“And in the meantime, I left to review the communications with the drivers, but for drivers, we didn’t even know ourselves how long this period would’ve been until the weather forecast had become a little clearer.
“So, we just tried to keep this period as short as possible and the drivers know that this is the case, so we don’t want to make it unnecessarily long.”
