Toto Wolff Speaks Out On McLaren Team Order Difficulties - 'Starts To Become Dysfunctional'

Chris Ladd | Sep 3, 2024

Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Toto Wolff | 2024 Italian Grand Prix, Friday - Jiri Krenek /

Toto Wolff has spoken out on McLaren's tricky 'number one driver' issue. With Lando Norris in contention for the title and the gap to Max Verstappen shrinking, McLaren may need to prioritize Norris to capitalize on any further opportunities to close the gap. The Italian Grand Prix was a missed chance for Norris, especially after losing out to his teammate Oscar Piastri early in the race. With McLaren also closing in on Red Bull in the Constructors' standings, every decision and race strategy will be critical in the remaining nine races.

Wolff's sympathy for McLaren stems from his own experience managing similar situations at Mercedes, where balancing the ambitions of two competitive drivers can be a difficult and delicate task. He recognizes the challenges McLaren faces in ensuring both drivers can compete while also trying to maximize their chances in the championship. This "catch-22" situation makes it difficult for McLaren to prioritize one driver without potentially causing tension or sacrificing team harmony.

“I think as a racing team that is battling at the front suddenly, you are between a rock and a hard place because on one side they are racers like we are racers. We want to make sure that the best man wins but on the other side when it starts to become dysfunctional and impacting your team performance then how do you react to that,” Wolff said in Monza to Autosport and others.

“The team is always on the losing end because if you freeze positions and have team orders then you have maybe not what our racing soul wants to do but the rational side needs to prevail.

“At the end, you don’t want to lose out on a championship by three or five points that you could have easily made," Wolff added. "So walking that tightrope is so difficult and there is no universal truth of how to handle it.”

Wolff suggests that the McLaren team boss Andrea Stella may need to take a more cautious approach when managing his drivers, especially after Oscar Piastri's first-lap overtake at Monza.

“There is nobody that understands sport more than Andrea. He has seen it all of that pan out in front of his eyes multiple times at Ferrari,” added Wolff, referring to Stella's stint at the Maranello squad between 2000-2014.

“He has that racers’ soul that doesn’t want to do it and wants to let them race but I think they are going to come to some conclusion after this race, how are we handling this? This is when we started to introduce the rules of engagement and then we changed the wording to racing intent because ‘rules’ was too harsh as a word for the drivers.”