Lando Norris will not be designated as McLaren's clear 'number 1' driver for the remaining nine races of the 2024 season.
The 24-year-old Briton has emerged as the lead driver for McLaren, now piloting a dominant car and potentially closing the 70-point gap to Max Verstappen by season's end.
Norris secured an easy victory at Zandvoort, while his teammate Oscar Piastri finished in fourth place.
"Oscar finished P4, so it's not like McLaren were in a different class," noted Ferrari's Carlos Sainz. "I really think they owe that one to Lando."
However, Piastri, aged 23, claimed his first-ever win just last month in Hungary, where McLaren controversially instructed Norris to let Piastri through, as he had been given a superior race strategy when Piastri was leading.
This decision cost Norris valuable points, which could prove crucial at the end of the championship.
So, will McLaren rethink their approach moving forward?
"We already have conversations around team orders all season," McLaren team principal Andrea Stella explained. "You have these conversations in the context of what the drivers' classification is."
Yet, this doesn't necessarily mean Norris will be officially recognised as the number 1 driver.
"We have nine races ahead of us and if we create a number 1 driver, what do we do?" the Italian questioned. "All the favours to one driver? No, this is not a healthy way to run a team."
Stella continued, "For every race, we will analyse the situations and in the 50-50 situations, in this case if Lando needs a bit of extra support, we are going to give it to him. But the team includes Oscar. The team should not do things that are unreasonable to Oscar."
Norris commented at Zandvoort that the "only rule" between him and his Australian teammate is "don't crash into each other."
"Otherwise, we've always been free to race," Norris added.
Piastri echoed this sentiment, stating, "The rules are very, very clear and haven't changed. And yeah, we're free to race each other to try and win."
But, like Sainz, former F1 driver Christijan Albers also believes Norris seriously outperformed Piastri last weekend. "He really was not strong," he told De Telegraaf.
After the Dutch GP, Piastri said, "I was stuck in dirty air. As soon as I got clean air, the pace was strong. It's just that I was stuck behind people for 65 of the 72 laps."
Albers, however, questioned, "If Norris can overtake Verstappen, why can't Piastri overtake George Russell?"
What seems apparent now is that if Piastri is leading Norris on the track, McLaren may still issue a team radio call. "It is not the team that has to make this decision," Stella emphasised. "The decision is made on the track."
"No driver should be number 1 just because he thinks 'I'm that'. Of course, if it happens again, we will choose the driver who is in the better position in the drivers' championship. For me, it is a question of principle," Stella added. "If you give up these principles too quickly, you create a climate of inequity in the team, and that does not pay off in the long term."
"I keep repeating that I don't know any driver who wants to be number 1 by contract. Drivers want to be number 1 because they are fastest on the track."
