The 16th round of the 2025 Formula 1 season came to an end at Monza, where a position swap ordered by McLaren sparked heated debate. The weekend in Brianza did not finish in the best possible way for the papaya team, which after five consecutive victories had to settle for second and third place at the legendary Italian circuit. At Monza it was Max Verstappen who triumphed, followed closely by the two McLaren drivers, whose team order decision generated plenty of controversy.
The 2025 Italian Grand Prix will not be remembered as a race full of dramatic twists or wheel-to-wheel duels, but a few episodes still gave fans something to discuss. Among them was the McLaren team order that came after the pit stops. Before the stops, Lando Norris was ahead of Oscar Piastri, and therefore should have had the priority to pit first.
The British driver, however, chose to give precedence to Oscar Piastri, on the condition that the Australian did not gain the margin necessary to undercut him and take second place. Lando Norris eventually stopped after his teammate, but a mistake during his pit stop forced car number 4 to rejoin the track behind Piastri.
Because of this, McLaren decided to issue a team order, since without the pit crew error, Lando would have come back out ahead of Oscar. Car number 81 followed the instructions from the pit wall, and the race finished with Norris in second position and Piastri taking the final step of the podium in third.
Rosberg on the McLaren swap
What happened at Monza split fan opinion, and Nico Rosberg made clear where he stood. “I want a super exciting Formula 1 championship right down to the end. So I was happy that in this case Lando got the chance to take the points he deserved, because in my opinion he did a better job than Oscar over the Monza weekend.”
The former Formula 1 world champion also analysed the other perspective. “It’s tough because if I were Oscar, I would go crazy, because something like that has never been done before. I think that internally, pit stop speed is part of racing. If a pit stop is one second slower and that makes the difference between winning or losing, that has always been part of the sport. It has always been this way. So of course, from Oscar’s point of view, he will not have liked it very much. But he had no choice. Once the team makes the call, he is obliged to let him through.”
To conclude, Rosberg recalled the days when he shared the Mercedes garage with Lewis Hamilton, citing the so-called “silver rules.” “We had very clear rules. If there was a risk of losing the race win to a rival, then we had to work together as a team to make sure we secured the victory.”
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