Red Bull Formula 1 boss Christian Horner believes that Oscar Piastri’s strong form is “causing headaches” for McLaren as the Woking team attempts to win the drivers’ championship with Lando Norris.
McLaren confirmed before the Azerbaijan GP that where possible Piastri would henceforth support Norris’s title bid, although there was a significant grey area in that Norris said he didn’t want his team mate to give up a race win.
Any team orders became irrelevant in Baku where Piastri won the race and Norris recovered to fourth from a poor grid position.
Piastri now has 222 points to the 254 of Norris, and is thus still mathematically in the fight in his own right, albeit 91 points shy of leader Max Verstappen.
“Usually they are things that are dealt with behind closed doors,” said Horner when asked about McLaren’s team orders situation. “So I’m not actually sure what those rules are. There still seems some confusion.
“Every team is different. Our rules of engagement are very clear, and what the focus to end of the year is.
“We’ve got a driver that’s fighting for a World Championship. It’s a team sport. So it’s very clear that Checo’s job is there to support Max the end of the year.”
He added: “Different teams operate different ways. When you’ve got an asset like Max Verstappen, you don’t make him a number two driver.
“They’re paying [Norris] five times what they pay Oscar, so I would assume that he would be their number one driver, or their biggest asset.
“So therefore the confusion comes when you’re not upfront from the beginning of what your plans are.”
Asked if McLaren should consider Norris a clear number one Horner made some intriguing observations not just about Red Bull’s rivals, but about his own team’s history.
“I think the other one is causing them headaches, because he’s winning races, and he’s doing a very good job.
“So it was like when Daniel Ricciardo came to us [in 2014], he was clearly supposed to be the number two to Sebastian Vettel, and he won three races that year to Sebastian’s none.
“Sometimes it causes you a headache like that. For sure, they took Oscar with the expectation, as Mercedes did with probably George, and Ferrari did with Carlos, that you’ve got a prime asset, and a support asset.
“And of course, when the second driver starts outperforming the first driver, that’s when you tend to have a have a headache.”
Horner suggested that having two top drivers is not easy.
“It becomes a very difficult problem to manage,” he said. “Because you split the team, and the rules of engagement become very, very difficult.
“Everybody knows probably who the number one and number two is, but if you’re not up front with the drivers, you end up with confusion.
“So I think going into a race, into any race, and obviously at the beginning of the season, it’s all open. But certainly when you get around the halfway point, you’ve got to pick a horse. Especially if you’re in a championship battle.”
