Max Verstappen mocks McLaren with savage radio comment at Italian Grand Prix | F1 | Sport

Max Verstappen made fun of McLaren’s decision to swap Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris around during the closing laps of the Italian Grand Prix, laughing in a radio exchange with race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase. The World Championship leaders were placed in an awkward position when a slow pit stop caused their drivers to switch positions.

Norris had been running second since the opening handful of laps, keeping team-mate and championship rival Piastri at arm’s length. However, when McLaren pulled the Australian in for his stop, it accidentally led to an undercut. The Woking squad were slow with the wheel gun on the No.4 machine, leaving him stationary in his box for nearly six seconds. This fed him out on track behind his colleague.

After a communcation with his race engineer, Tom Stallard, Piastri made his feelings clear, but handed second place back to Norris without much resistance. The two McLaren cars were then free to race, but the Australian was unable to find a way back through before the chequered flag.

Verstappen found the decision amusing. After he was informed by Lambiase, the race responded: «Ha, just because he had a slow stop?» Lambiase responded: It’s not our business, but I guess it keeps it fair between the drivers in the championship.»

After the race, both Norris and Piastri avoided delving too deep into the incident, which saw the latter’s World Championship advantage cut to 31 points. «A little incident at the end, but it’s okay,» the Australian said. His team-mate added: «No idea [what happened]. I felt like I was there quite a long time. Every now and then, we make mistakes as a team, and today was one of them.»

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The command from the McLaren was hotly debated by fans and pundits after the race. Andrea Stella’s squad set a precedent when they told Norris to let Piastri through to win in Budapest last year under the ‘papaya rules’ philosophy, designed to ensure a fair intra-team title fight.

Nico Rosberg, who experienced multiple title battles with Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton, weighed in for Sky Sports F1. «Max had the view of Oscar that pit stop times are part of racing and what comes around, comes around.

«It’s a really difficult one internally, and that will require some talks because I don’t think Oscar would have done that. From the outside, you think okay, that’s the only way to do it fair, because Lando deserved second place because he did a much better weekend, but it’s not so straight-cut.»