P1racenews AI automatic summary:
Former McLaren driver David Coulthard has called out a seldom-considered issue with the F1 constructors’ champion’s approach to team orders — but a solution may be incoming.
David Coulthard criticized McLaren for assigning Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri’s race engineers, Will Joseph and Tom Stallard, to deliver team orders to the drivers, stating that such instructions should be given by the team principal or sporting director. Coulthard likened the driver and race engineer relationship to comrades in the trenches, emphasizing the need for an “unbreakable” bond between them. He suggested that preserving this bond could be achieved by ensuring that the engineer does not have to convey imposed team orders to the driver. Despite past criticisms of McLaren’s handling of team orders, little attention has been given to Joseph and Stallard’s roles in communicating with Norris and Piastri. Coulthard expressed a desire for improvement in this area, advocating for team orders to originate from higher-ranking personnel rather than race engineers to maintain the driver-engineer relationship intact. The appointment of Will Courteney as sporting director at McLaren has been welcomed by Coulthard, suggesting that such role changes could align with his views on team orders communication within the team.
