1 day Ago By Henry Valantine
Jacques Villeneuve claims McLaren “cannot give priority” to Lando Norris at this stage of the F1 2025 season as Oscar Piastri’s contract “protects him” from team orders as long as both drivers are in title contention. Piastri signed a multi-year contract extension with McLaren ahead of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, with the team locking both of their drivers to long-term deals. After the much-discussed ‘papaya rules’ put in place at McLaren in combat last season, before Norris was eventually preferred for a title push against Max Verstappen, both Norris and Piastri have reiterated the ‘free to race’ message between the pair of them as the F1 2025 season has started.
While Piastri received a brief ‘hold position’ request in Melbourne as the duo navigated traffic, they were allowed to race freely again soon afterwards. With Piastri’s long-term future now secure at McLaren, 1997 World Champion Villeneuve explained that while the Australian “will be a threat” to Norris in this year’s title fight, the team is also duty-bound to give both drivers equal treatment at this stage, claiming Piastri’s new deal “protects him” from Norris being given priority as team leader. “All that matters for McLaren is that they have a car right now that is easy to drive for both drivers which means they can control the championship,” Villeneuve told CardPlayer .
👉 F1 uncovered: The hidden McLaren MCL39 brake design details 👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates “Lando always has issues with the front end, he always uses up his front tyres a little bit too much and China is an understeer track that eats up the front tyres. He was always going to have a little bit more trouble on that track. “Now, because second or first is a big difference in points, it was important for Lando to go get as many points as possible and keep pushing, because he knows that Piastri in the long run, will be a threat to his championship chances and the battle might just be between him and his team-mate.
“That’s always the most difficult when your battle is against your teammate. “They cannot give Lando priority over Oscar because of the contract. He has a contract that protects him.
“As long as both drivers can win the Championship, there won’t be team orders unless there’s something significantly big for the Constructors’ title or if one of them is having an issue in a race like last year.” There is no suggestion from the team’s side that one driver will be given priority at this stage over the other, however, with team principal Andrea Stella hoping to see his drivers have fair battles at the front of the field – though added the interest of McLaren “is above each of us” as individuals. “We are in Formula 1, and competition is obviously the DNA of this kind of business, and competition is with all the other teams and also internal,” he explained to reporters ahead of the start of the new season.
“As part of the due diligence and good management of a Formula 1 team, you have to be ready for both – and looking at experiences from last year, I think I’ve already had the chance to say that in most of the cases, I was very proud, very impressed by how diligent, by how positive the interaction between our two drivers was. “We had a couple of cases in which we needed to look into and see how we could have done better – certainly Monza is one of those – and I think we have done some important work over the winter. “Lando and Oscar are fully supportive of our approach that is a combination of having some more, you call them rules, I think it’s more principles, because rules mean that you have to deal with a specific scenario.
“But in reality, there are so many scenarios that, while you can apply some principles and, where possible, some rules, ultimately, we need to rely on the team and the drivers always remembering that the interest of the team is above each of us.” Read next: Max Verstappen future prediction made with new four-race timeline set.
