After a difficult period of team orders, known also as the "papaya rules", last season, McLaren had hoped to start fresh in 2024 with a clear plan for managing its drivers. But in the very first race at the Australian Grand Prix, the team had to step in again.

Despite saying before the season that Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri would be free to race, McLaren decided to hold position when the two drivers got close on track.

Norris had led comfortably after fending off Max Verstappen, with Piastri following behind. But as the track dried and the intermediate tyres wore down, Piastri gained on his teammate and got within the one-second DRS window. He believed he was faster at that moment, but McLaren told him to stay behind, which left the Australian frustrated.

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella explained that the decision was made because of traffic ahead and concerns about the weather.

“So, during the race, at some stage, we had to go relatively soon through some backmarkers, while the cars were close together and the conditions on track were still a little tricky with Intermediates tyres that were running down a bit in terms of their rubber,” said Stella, quoted by GPblog.

“And at the same time, we were receiving some updates on the weather forecast.”

With both factors adding uncertainty, McLaren temporarily stopped its drivers from racing each other.

“So, we had the going through the backmarkers and the update on the weather forecast that led us to close for a short period of time the internal racing between our two drivers until we had clarity as to the weather prediction, what this meant for how we should have used the tyres, and then until we had closed the matter of overtaking the backmarkers,” Stella continued.

“So, once this was completed and the weather was assessed, then we reopened the racing.”

Even though McLaren stepped in, Stella made it clear that the team wanted to keep this pause as short as possible to give Piastri a fair chance to challenge for victory at his home race.

“The drivers were aware when we gave the team order to hold positions, and then they were aware when we told them to be free to race,” he explained.

Since the weather was still uncertain, it was not clear how long the order would last, but Stella assured that McLaren did not want to extend it unnecessarily.

“We just tried to keep this period as short as possible, and the drivers know that this is the case, so we don’t want to make it unnecessarily long.”