Nico Rosberg has responded to the controversial team order from McLaren. Oscar Piastri was asked to give back his position to Lando Norris during the Italian Grand Prix after a slow pit stop. “If a slow pit stop makes a difference, that’s just part of the sport – it’s always been that way,” says Rosberg.
Nico Rosberg, himself a world champion in 2016 after an intense title fight with Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes, shares his views on the team order at McLaren in Monza in the Sky Sports F1 podcast. According to Rosberg, there was “no clear right or wrong choice for the team”, but McLaren ultimately chose “the least bad option” by having Oscar Piastri give back the position to Lando Norris.
No killers
The former Mercedes driver calls it “a fair decision, especially since Norris was simply better than Piastri in Monza.” Rosberg also emphasizes that McLaren was lucky with how the situation unfolded internally: “Both McLaren drivers are not yet killers. They are getting closer, but they are not there yet.”
According to the current analyst, it is difficult to enforce strict rules in situations like the unplanned undercut by Piastri. “You can’t capture these kinds of situations in one rule. Where do you draw the line?”, the German wonders. Rosberg emphasizes that variations in pit stop times will always be part of the sport. “That’s just part of the sport. A team can never guarantee that everyone gets exactly the same stop. It’s more like: ‘When is it really unfair?’ And that’s just very difficult.”
When asked what he would have done himself, Rosberg is crystal clear: “I’m a killer. I would have turned off the radio and just said after the race: ‘Sorry, I couldn’t hear you’.”
