McLaren insisted that pitting would put Norris in traffic, as it did with Charles Leclerc and Ferrari, but they followed their wishes as Mercedes also pitted George Russell.

This proved to be a mistake for both, as the safety car was deployed due to rain and then a red flag appeared after Franco Colapinto crashed on the start-finish straight. This allowed the top three, Max Verstappen, Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly to change their tires without wasting time in the pits.

With Norris restarting the race in P5, he made another mistake in the first corner and went off the track, leaving him behind teammate Oscar Piastri in P7. McLaren made quick work of swapping the two cars per team orders, knowing that Norris was the faster of the two.

It was the second time McLaren used team orders over the weekend, having told Piastri to step aside to allow Norris to win Saturday’s Sprint race. red bull Simulator driver Rudy Van Buren disagreed with the way McLaren executed his team’s orders when he spoke at the RacingNews365 EN podcast.

Rudy Van Buren does not agree with the McLaren team’s orders against Oscar Piastri

Piastri had received a 10-second penalty for an incident with Liam Lawson early in the race and was unable to serve it during a pit stop.

He The Australian was seen apologizing to Lawson in the pit lane during the red flageffectively admitting that he was at fault for the collision that caused the Visa CashApp RB driver to spin in the first corner. McLaren knew this and decided to swap Piastri and Norris when they were close to the track, to avoid losing time.

During the Sprint race, Norris had been unable to get close to Piastri and at the last minute was told to swap positions before a virtual safety car was deployed for the crashed Haas of Nico Hulkenberg.

Van Buren felt that the team did not execute the team order well after Norris had already expressed frustration at the growing prospect of a VSC or full Safety Car.

“There was a lot of pressure on Norris on Saturday, they did what they had to do. “I don’t entirely agree with the way they did it, but they got the point across in the end,” Van Buren said.

Lando Norris ‘wasn’t prepared’ after making a mistake at the Sao Paulo GP

Norris’s race was compromised before it even started when he spun out of his place on the grid when Race Control decided to abandon the start for Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin.

The stewards investigated Norris for a starting offense along with George Russell and both RB drivers, and subsequently issued him with a driving caution and a €5,000 (£4,200) fine for the offence.

READ MORE: McLaren driver Lando Norris’ life outside of F1 from parents to celebration

Former F1 mechanic Marc Priestley believes Norris simply ‘wasn’t ready’ when the call was made and was not familiar with the regulations.

Carlos Sainz had committed the same infraction last year at the Italian GP, ​​but he was not investigated by the stewards and did not receive any sanction.

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