The cruel irony of a sport where competitors race in teams of two is that whenever one driver wins – be it a race victory or a world title – the other must lose.
No matter how gracious any Formula 1 driver is when their team mate collects the race winner’s trophy, that inherent desire to be the one hoisting that prize aloft instead cannot be easily quashed.
So when circumstances conspire and leave teams facing the unsavoury prospect of requesting that one of their drivers voluntarily hands over the ultimate prize to the one who is often their closest competitor, conflict is inevitable.
David Coulthard did so for Mika Hakkinen twice in consecutive races in the late nineties – and later admitted he regretted it. Was Felipe Massa ever the same after being told that Fernando Alonso was faster than him at Hockenheim? Was a podium celebration ever more awkward than on that infamous afternoon in Austria back in 2002 after Rubens Barrichello waved Michael Schumacher through?
But when drivers choose to put themselves first, the results are rarely pretty. Sebastian Vettel picked himself over Mark Webber in Sepang, writing the phrase ‘multi-21’ into F1 folklore. Two decades prior, Ayrton Senna’s refusal to respect a pre-race agreement with Alain Prost at Imola was just another rip in their rapidly deteriorating relationship over 1989. And the Hungaroring was the stage where Lewis Hamilton and Alonso’s ill-tempered 2007 season truly turned irreparable.
At least McLaren had plenty of prior experience of flashpoints between their drivers to lean on for when they eventually returned to the front of the field again – half of those famed cases involved their drivers…
The opening races of the 2024 season were lukewarm affairs for McLaren but the team found its form after a successful upgrade in Miami. From Lando Norris’ win in that race onwards, McLaren had the car to win every time, though the Austrian and British rounds well to Mercedes.
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So when Norris and Oscar Piastri secured their team’s first front row lock-out of the V6 hybrid turbo era, narrowly denying Max Verstappen in the process, this was surely their best opportunity of the season so far to join Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes by becoming a multi-win team in 2024. All they had to do, as Piastri put it, was play it ‘smart’ in the race.
McLaren started strong in this endeavour….
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