Toto Wolff 'curious' at McLaren fallout as major team order warning issued

Toto Wolff says he is "curious" to see how McLaren's team orders decision in the Italian Grand Prix will pan out, as he warned a precedent had been set.

With Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri leading one-two, but yet to stop in the closing stages at Monza, Piastri was pitted first to protect against Charles Leclerc behind, but a slow stop for Norris meant the Australian got ahead of his rival.

McLaren then instructed Piastri to cede second to Norris, despite him saying he believed a slow pit-stop was part of racing, before giving the place back. 

It meant Norris cut Piastri's lead to 31 points in the standings, but Mercedes chief Wolff, who guided Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg through their vicious title fights between 2014-2016, believes McLaren has now set a precedent for team orders which must be followed for the remainder of the season.

"That is a super interesting question," Wolff told media, including RacingNews365, when asked if he would have made the same call as McLaren did. 

"There is no right and there is no wrong, and I'm curious to see how it plans out, to set the precedent which is very difficult to undo.

"What if the team makes another mistake and there is not a pit-stop to switch them around, but then equally, because of a team mistake, making a driver trying to catch up lose the points is not fair either.

"So I think we are going to get our response on whether it was right towards the end of the season, when it heats up. 

"If I look at our situations [with Hamilton and Rosberg], because I am not in the shoes of McLaren, back in the day, with the kind of gap where the constructors' championship is guaranteed, you just let them race, but within the rules: 'You race fair and square and you don't touch.'

"'If you touch, then we will take control', that's what I would have done better in 2016 than trying to over-manage with our racing intent."