Nico Rosberg directly challenges McLaren to enforce ‘team orders’ to aid Lando Norris
Pole-sitter Norris was overtaken by his teammate Oscar Piastri on lap one of the Italian Grand Prix despite being embroiled in a championship battle with Max Verstappen
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Your support makes all the difference.Nico Rosberg was forceful and direct as he told Zak Brown that McLaren must enforce team orders to give Lando Norris the best opportunity of winning the 2024 world championship.
Pole-sitter Norris was overtaken by his teammate Oscar Piastri on lap one of Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix, with eventual winner Charles Leclerc capitalising at the same corner to take second place from Norris.
Norris, who trails Max Verstappen by 62 points in the drivers’ championship with eight races remaining, said post-race that he would prefer if McLaren could prioritise him in the F1 title race.
Yet while McLaren enforced “papaya rules” during Sunday’s race – the definition being to race “hard but clean against your team-mate” – the team are yet to publicly label Norris the No 1 driver. It was a position that 2016 champion Rosberg took umbrage with in conversation with McLaren CEO Brown.
“Zak, isn’t it time to introduce a little bit of team orders into the papaya rules,” Rosberg said on Sky Sports F1. “That turn four [lap one overtake], you allowed Leclerc to come through.
“First of all Lando nearly spun, that was very close. And then you allowed Leclerc to come through and who knows, maybe that was the 2.6 seconds which cost you the win. Is it time to implement some rules here?”
Brown responded: “That’s what we’ll discuss next week, we’ll look at that. Could we have been able to pull away? It’s a fair question.
“Papaya rules are ‘it’s your team-mate, race them hard and race them clean, don’t touch.’ That happened. It was an aggressive pass, that’s a conversation we’ll have. It was a bit nerve-wracking on the pit wall. It’s really just respect your team-mate.”
It was another missed opportunity for Norris though, who finished third and gained just eight points on Verstappen – who finished sixth – in the title race.
When asked if he’d prefer McLaren to prioritise him, Norris said: “It’s not up to me. I think as any driver you don’t want things to play out that way. I wouldn’t say we’re running out of time but time is going away slowly. It’s not for me to decide.”
Piastri, when asked for his opinion, simply replied: “No comment.”
There are 232 points still available this season – with eight races and three sprint races – but time is gradually running out for Norris to chase down Verstappen and claim his first world title.
Leclerc claimed a memorable victory at the home of Ferrari in Monza, cutting his own deficit to second-placed Norris to 24 points.
The next race takes place in Baku with the Azerbaijan Grand Prix (13-15 September).
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