According to a sarcastic Dr. Helmut Marko, McLaren made a difficult weekend at Monza a bit more bearable for Red Bull.
On Sunday, Red Bull's senior F1 consultant was asked if it was particularly disappointing that championship leader Max Verstappen couldn't finish higher than P6.
"Not at all," the 81-year-old Austrian responded. "We kind of saw this coming."
"I want to congratulate Ferrari on the win and thank McLaren for their sporting principles," Marko added with a wink. "You could see that in their drivers' battle on the first lap and in their decision not to swap positions closer to the finish. As a result, our poor performance was not so damaging," he told ORF.
"It could have been worse, but the gap is instead about the same as it was in Zandvoort."
Indeed, on Sunday, Lando Norris, Verstappen's closest competitor for the 2024 drivers' title, closed the gap to 62 points. But the situation could have been more challenging had Oscar Piastri not been instructed to refrain from overtaking his McLaren teammate on the opening lap.
Throughout the Italian GP, Norris and Piastri's race engineers repeatedly used the phrase "papaya rules," but Dutch commentator Tom Coronel believes Piastri ignored it.
"Piastri clearly still believes in the championship," he told Viaplay. "He thinks 'our car is better, we can beat Red Bull, so why should I help Norris?' The team didn't make a hard choice, and that just helped Max."
Russian commentator Alexey Popov believes McLaren needs to reassess its strategy. "After Baku-Singapore, there is a four-week break in which Red Bull can seriously improve the situation."
"The McLaren is a rocket now. It would seem obvious to try to get Norris as close as possible in the championship. I don't know why they are squandering it."
Following a similar situation earlier in 2024, McLaren maintained that they have two 'number 1' drivers and it would be unfair to effectively demote Piastri.
"I mean, I would love it," Norris said on Sunday when asked if he'd like McLaren to fully support him. "But it's not up to me."
"I wouldn't say we're running out of time, but time is going away slowly," he added. "When you're fighting for a championship, you want every little thing."
Conversely, some believe Norris doesn't merit a number 1 status.
"Piastri's manager is Mark Webber, and he says simply that they will not be the second driver," former Red Bull driver Robert Doornbos told Ziggo Sport. "I just think Lando doesn't deserve to be called the first driver."
Dutch GP boss Jan Lammers told NOS: "The only explanation I can think of is that Piastri has it in his contract that there will be no team orders. That is the only logical explanation, because otherwise, I don't understand it at all."
The Sun newspaper harshly claims that Norris "choked pole position again" on Sunday, with Doornbos adding: "You can see clearly that he makes mistakes under pressure."
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella admits it's a tricky situation. "We have to analyse what happened," he said late on Sunday. "Maybe Lando simply braked earlier than Oscar."
"We have to make sure that our drivers stick to our rules."
Stella also acknowledged that a team order might have been given to Piastri under different circumstances. "(Charles) Leclerc was simply always there. So we couldn't even think about swapping places."
McLaren CEO Zak Brown explained that "papaya rules" is simply a guideline for the drivers to always consider the team's interests.
"It was ok in turn 1," he said regarding Piastri's overtaking intentions. "Later in Lesmo it was an aggressive move, and we'll look at the data again, but it was clean."
Former F1 driver Ralf Schumacher recognises the challenge facing the Woking-based team.
"What can you say?" he told Sky Deutschland. "Oscar was fast. It was harsh of him to do that, but he would have just been breathing down Lando's neck the whole race."
"The more important question to me is whether the two of them pushed each other so hard that they managed to ruin the one-stop. But as long as the pair are so close together, I would also have a hard time as team boss. You destroy a driver to some extent if you tell him that he has to back off," Schumacher added.
When asked about Piastri's bold approach in his duel with Norris, Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz remarked: "It shows that there are no friends in Formula 1 and that you cannot trust anyone."
