David Coulthard criticises rarely-considered McLaren team orders problem

David Coulthard has criticised McLaren for getting Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri's race engineers, Will Joseph and Tom Stallard, to convey team orders to their respective drivers.

The 13-time grand prix winner, who raced for the Woking-based squad from 1996 to 2004, argued those types of instructions should come from either the team principal or the sporting director.

To illustrate his point, the Scotsman likened the relationship between driver and race engineer to being in the trenches together, underlining the importance of maintaining an "unbreakable" bond.

In Coulthard's view, a simple way to preserve that is by ensuring the person in the driver's ear does not have to relay team orders being imposed upon them.

McLaren has been heavily criticised for its handling of papaya rules over the past couple of years, but the fact that it is usually Joseph and Stallard informing Norris and Piastri, respectively, is seldom considered.

When crediting the reigning constructors' champions on wanting the best drivers available and attempting to "manage them somehow", the 54-year-old pointed out the one area he would like to see improvement in.

"The only criticism I would have is that I don't like when the engineer — because that bond between the driver and the engineer, for me, has to be absolute," Coulthard said on the latest episode of the Red Flags Podcast.

"I would liken it to: If you guys are in the trenches together and someone blows the whistle back in the day to go out and fight the enemy, you've got to know that you're both going at the same time.

"You know, [they're] not hiding behind you, and you're not hiding; you're there shoulder to shoulder.

"So that relationship between driver and engineer has to be unbreakable, that bond."

Interestingly, the evening prior to that podcast episode being released, it was confirmed that Will Courtenay — who was most recently head of race strategy at Red Bull — will start work as sporting director at McLaren, an appointment that has long been anticipated.

Whether he becomes to person to pass on team orders to Norris and Piastri remains to be seen, but that would be a move Coulthard endorses.

"So I think that when they do give 'move over, don't race' type instructions, that should come from the team principal or the sporting director," the former Williams, McLaren and Red Bull driver added. "It should not come from the race engineer.

"The driver should absolutely believe that his engineer would say: 'That's not my job, my job is to get my driver winning, and I will only give instructions that can help that. But I'm a professional and therefore if there's an instruction which is going to get my driver to hold position, that has to come from someone else in the team'."