Christian Horner: Oscar Piastri causing McLaren ‘headaches’ amid team orders ‘confusion’

Red Bull F1 boss Christian Horner says Oscar Piastri is causing McLaren “headaches” amid the “confusion” surrounding their stance over team orders.

Following discussions after the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, McLaren confirmed they were implementing new team rules for the remainder of the season to boost Lando Norris’s chase of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in the drivers’ championship.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said his team would favour Norris over teammate Piastri, who insisted he would be “happy to play a supporting role at this point of the season”.

The British outfit’s new rules were not required at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix as Piastri won while Norris recovered to fourth, one place ahead of Verstappen, having started from 15th place after suffering a shock Q1 exit.

Asked for his opinion on McLaren’s change of approach to team orders, Horner said: "Usually those things are dealt with behind closed doors. I’m not actually sure what those rules are. There’s still seems confusion.”

Norris trimmed Verstappen’s advantage by three points down to 59 points in Baku, while Piastri is 91 points behind the Dutchman and 32 adrift of his McLaren teammate.

Horner compared McLaren’s situation as being similar to when Red Bull promoted Daniel Ricciardo to race alongside four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel in 2014.

“I think the other one [Piastri] is causing them headaches because he’s winning races and he’s doing a very good job,” Horner continued.

“It was like when Daniel Ricciardo came to us, he was clearly supposed to be the number two to Sebastian Vettel, and he won three races that year to Sebastian’s none.

“Sometimes it causes you a headache like that. For sure they took Oscar with the expectation, as Mercedes probably did with George [Russell], and Ferrari probably did with Carlos [Sainz], that you have a prime asset and a support asset.

“Of course when the second driver starts outperforming the first driver that’s when you tend to have a headache.”

Horner suggested that McLaren have not been “upfront” with their drivers and could be left facing a “very difficult problem to manage.”

“Different teams operate in different ways. When you’ve got an asset like Max Verstappen, you don’t make him a number two driver,” Horner explained.

"Lando Norris, they are paying five times what they pay Oscar, so I would assume that he would be their number one driver, or the biggest asset. The confusion comes when you are not upfront from the beginning about what your plans are.

“It becomes a very difficult problem to manage, because you split the team and the rules of engagement become very difficult. Everybody knows probably who the number one and two is, but if you’re not upfront with the drivers, you end up with confusion.

“At the beginning of the season obviously it’s all open but certainly when you get to around the half-way point, you’ve got to pick a horse, especially if you’re in a championship battle.”