It’s totally likely that Max was messing around here because he’s funny like that… But he’s also a shrewd competitor, and getting into the head of the (to this point) more unflappable of the two McLaren drivers who are ahead of you in the WDC by joking about a situation that has clearly rattled him would be exactly the type of clever off-track psych-out that I’d expect from somebody performing at the top of their game.
They do, but McLaren have been trying to run this micro-managing fannying around “papaya rules” thing where they say they have no number 1 driver and don’t favour either of them.
What this looks like in practice is: interfering with the racing, and telling Piastri to slow down because Norris had a bad pit stop. It’s all been a bit of a fiasco, and it’s made them look like a very namby-pamby team, to my eyes.
The media is definitely making it more of a thing than it really is, but then they haven’t got much else to talk about. And to be fair McLaren aren’t helping themselves.
As if you need to clarify such a thing
It’s totally likely that Max was messing around here because he’s funny like that… But he’s also a shrewd competitor, and getting into the head of the (to this point) more unflappable of the two McLaren drivers who are ahead of you in the WDC by joking about a situation that has clearly rattled him would be exactly the type of clever off-track psych-out that I’d expect from somebody performing at the top of their game.
Could also just be joking, though.
Don’t most teams favour one driver vs the other?
I mean RB does bend over backwards for Max who is, openly, their #1 driver since he got the seat
They do, but McLaren have been trying to run this micro-managing fannying around “papaya rules” thing where they say they have no number 1 driver and don’t favour either of them.
What this looks like in practice is: interfering with the racing, and telling Piastri to slow down because Norris had a bad pit stop. It’s all been a bit of a fiasco, and it’s made them look like a very namby-pamby team, to my eyes.
I get that… but I find F1 is 99% melodrama when it comes to stuff like this
The media is definitely making it more of a thing than it really is, but then they haven’t got much else to talk about. And to be fair McLaren aren’t helping themselves.
Yeah it’s a very different sport than it used to be, that’s for sure.