Oscar Piastri clarifies McLaren 'precedent' situation after team orders uproar

Oscar Piastri has refuted the suggestion of a precedent being set by McLaren's invocation of team orders during the Italian Grand Prix. The Woking-based squad instructed the 24-year-old to hand second place to Lando Norris at Monza after a slow pit stop for the British driver saw Piastri leapfrog him, having pitted first. Despite airing his disagreement with the decision over team radio , the Australian reluctantly fell in line, handing the position back to his team-mate. The call by the team has proven divisive, with opinion split as to whether it was right or fair to ask Piastri to step aside. McLaren has closed ranks, and the driver himself has since voiced his support for the course of action taken . However, it has been suggested by some that it has set a dangerous precedent as it looks to continue managing Piastri and Norris through an intra-squad title battle without things turning nasty. When it was queried whether they would hand positions to rivals in pursuit of fairness, if one had become disadvantaged in a similar way to what transpired at the Temple of Speed, Piastri denied that would be the case. Norris was quick to argue it would be "pretty stupid" to assume a "precedent" had been set , and Piastri highlighted that no switch would have been made at Monza had there been cars between the two MCL39s. "I think if it's within your control and there's no other cars involved, it's quite simple," the nine-time grand prix winner told media, including RacingNews365 . "But if there's other cars involved, we're not going to give away all of those points to other teams for a mistake. When there's no cars in between, it's much easier to rectify it." Piastri, addressing the question head-on, added that it would merely be a "very unfortunate" situation if a team error led to one of the McLaren drivers falling behind not only their team-mate, but other cars. "So to answer your question, if there had been more cars in between, then no, we wouldn't have swapped back because at that point it does just become very unfortunate," he concluded.