Who doesn’t despise being manipulated, lied to, or defrauded? The last place you think any of that would happen is in competitive sports … the legitimate kind, I mean. But think again. It happens in Formula One, encouraged by the media.
A caste of smug British commentators is frothing at the mouth, demanding that McLaren impose the team orders and tell the insanely talented Oscar Piastri to move over and protect the team “leader” (Lando Norris). They claim Norris has a shot at winning the world champion’s title even though he has a Sisyphean time beating his teammate, Oscar Piastri, who, they say, is not a championship contender.
That logic is as intellectually flawed as it is flagrantly dishonest. It says that we, the racing fans, evidently do not count.
At some point in the mid-2010s, I began weaning myself off a pernicious habit of roughly 15 years: tuning in once a fortnight to every live Formula 1 broadcast. And, much to the surprise of the prolific British Formula 1 media hacks, I imagine, something as repulsive as team orders had zero chance of making me reconsider.
By then, I’d had enough of that behind-the-scenes scheming nonsense tarnishing the sporting ethos and defying the spirit of competition. Because someone else is better positioned in the title hunt, it does not mean their teammate should surrender their thirst for victory, ego, and self-respect. Consider the absurd final seconds of the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix, when Rubens Barrichello, the fastest man on the track, was robbed of what looked like a richly deserved race win by his Maranello-based team. (By the way, I was among the booing crowd when Spielberg’s unsettling scene unfolded.)
But now they are calling on Zak Brown, McLaren CEO, to compromise the very essence of the racing spectacle. They’d like him to do so in favor of their homeboy Norris retaining the slim odds of beating Max Verstappen to the elusive title and, even more vexingly, at the expense of the fans’ already much-dented interest in the sport.
Let us avoid euphemistic jargon here and call it for what it is. These vociferous authoritarians in the media circus clothing want egregious cheating to be unapologetically instituted and institutionalized even.
As my interest was waning almost by the day, one driver rekindled that withering interest of mine. Oscar Piastri had spiced up the field before he could even slump into the McLaren cockpit by having the two major squads at loggerheads over his signing. Everything about this talented Aussie, already much accomplished in the feeder series, oozes speed, screams speed, and bleeds speed. Whenever he sees a shred of an opportunity, he hunkers down, lasers in on it, goes for it, and tries to make it stick.
Over the past two seasons, no other driver has pulled off more spectacular overtakes going around the outside than Oscar Piastri. But then….
In last Sunday’s Monza race, he did the same by clinically executing a masterful and breathtaking maneuver on his teammate, Lando Norris. But as a non-British commenter aptly said in the comment section under one of those videos, from what we have seen so far, Piastri proves to be more mature, more level-headed, more tactically astute, and more determined to duke it out.
Some say Lando cannot just take it up with McLaren’s top brass and ensconce his #1 driver status because, unlike Piastri, he is not selfish and is an overall “nice guy.” Well, last time I checked, being nice did not win you world championships. We all know, don’t we, from our high school years, that “ambition should be made of sterner stuff,” shouldn’t it?
It takes a fair degree of selfishness and a staunch propensity for not taking no for an answer to clinch the title, no matter the sporting avenue. Do not get me wrong: I am not saying Lando is ill-equipped in the talent department or does not have the hard skills required of a top-tier racecar driver. Yet, by the looks of it, he does not have the intangibles needed to operationalize his talent and skillset and eventually deliver, something Oscar, in turn, has no shortage of.
But then again, I highly doubt the “nice guy” narrative. Remember the cooldown room conversation following the awkward Hungarian Grand Prix? Lewis Hamilton commented on the McLaren race day form, only to catch some oddly inappropriate attitude from Lando, who suddenly snapped back with one of the worst instances of passive-aggressive behavior I can remember witnessing in Formula 1.
So, there may be quite a disturbing underlayer to that outward “nice guy” persona. But even this is somewhat beyond the point. I can deduce that Zack Brown knows the unpleasant #1 /#2 driver conversation around his team. It may be that he does not view Norris as the #1 in that optic.
And all of you British sports media gurus: don’t you dare mar the now-unusually vibrant and resurgent Formula 1 racing scene with something that may well belong in politics. It most certainly does not belong in competitive sports.
