Former F1 world champion Jacques Villeneuve has vented his frustration at McLaren following their apparent decision to prioritise Lando Norris over Oscar Piastri.
McLaren made the bold move in the build-up to the Azerbaijan Grand Prix this weekend in Baku, with Norris eyeing the drivers’ title while the team are in the hunt for the constructors’ championship too.
Team principal Andrea Stella admitted in the week that McLaren are set to prioritise the British driver as he looks to cut into Max Verstappen’s 62-point lead at the top of the standings. Piastri currently sits fourth, 44 points behind his team-mate.
The rivalry between the pair has been an interesting one this season, with a reluctant Norris having been ordered to let his team-mate overtake him so that he could win the Hungarian Grand Prix in July.
And at the Italian GP, Piastri produced an aggressive move on Norris on the opening lap to overtake his team-mate – subsequently finishing second while the Brit came home in third. The result meant the latter failed to cut a big chunk of Verstappen’s overall lead.
And now, team orders appear to have finally been imposed as McLaren eye a first drivers’ title since 2008. It means Stella and Zak Brown have made the decision to shelve the ‘Payaya Rules’ – that both drivers race fair against each other – in their bid to land Norris the world championship.
But Stella was keen to distance the ‘Papaya Rules’ term and suggested in Baku that they are not actually fully pressing ahead with number one and two driver roles.
And Villeneuve was critical of the constructors’ approach ahead of race weekend, telling Sky Sports: “I mean, I don’t want to be demeaning, I’m trying to find the right words, but I find it a little bit pathetic.
“This is F1. It’s the pinnacle. If I was a McLaren fan, I would be upset. Do they really want to win? Do they care? It doesn’t sound like they want to win. You know, it’s very utopic, it’s beautiful, but that’s not F1, you are here to win. That’s all that matters.
“Lando got the better of Piastri for the first half of the season. He’s the one with a chance to win. You play by that rule. I really fail to understand this concept of, ‘This is how we work, it’s beautiful, we’re much happier to finish second than to win’. Somehow, it’s weird.”
Norris will be desperate to cut the gap even further on Verstappen in Baku, at a track that hasn’t treated Red Bull too well in recent years. In the constructors’ championship, McLaren sit just eight points adrift of their rivals and have a brilliant chance of winning the title given the recent slump of Christian Horner‘s team.