Sky F1’s Martin Brundle has stirred the pot on one of the 2025 season’s biggest talking points, questioning whether McLaren’s controversial team-orders saga at Monza last September planted the seed for Oscar Piastri’s late-season meltdown – and ultimately his championship defeat to teammate Lando Norris.
Piastri arrived at the Italian Grand Prix as the title leader. He left it with bruised confidence, a questionable in-race swap, and, according to Brundle, perhaps the start of a psychological tailspin.
In a season where McLaren often executed with razor-sharp precision, Monza was the weekend where everything went sideways.
McLaren ordered Piastri to hand second place back to Norris after a bungled pit stop sequence – a decision that ignited days of argument across the paddock. Writing in his post-Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Sky Sports F1 column, Brundle admitted the fallout might have traveled far beyond the Italian weekend.
“Did Monza impact Piastri in the run-in?” he asked.
Brundle went on to outline just how strong Piastri had been up to that point.
“Norris still doesn't have Piastri's absolute laser guided and bold overtaking, and in many races Oscar took his turn to be undisputed class of the field with sensational victories in China, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Miami, Spain, Belgium, and, tellingly, his last of the season nine races ago in the Netherlands in August.”
But at Monza, Brundle believes the chain of events – and the way they unfolded – could easily have rattled the young Australian.
“A slow pit stop is just part of any Grand Prix season… but this one was delivered under specific circumstances”
In Brundle’s view, Piastri’s pit-stop advantage and subsequent penalty swap put immense emotional load on a weekend that should’ve been routine.
“In Monza, he was asked to hand back a place to Lando after pit stops. For me it was a very clear decision by the team,” added the former Grand Prix driver.
“They asked Lando to yield his priority pit stop, due to being the lead McLaren, over to Oscar to help his team-mate defend against Charles Leclerc's closing Ferrari, with a promise of no undercut.
“Lando played the team game and said 'yes' despite it being against his own best interests and it duly happened. Piastri received the first pit stop in 1.9 seconds and, somehow inevitably, Norris' took a yawning 5.9 seconds and there was indeed an undercut and Piastri was ahead.
“The team corrected that back out on track. Of course, a slow pit stop is just part of any Grand Prix season but this one was delivered under specific circumstances.
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“At least Piastri was now back in Norris' DRS range and was told he was free to race, and so still a net gain. Norris duly pulled away because he was the faster car/driver combo on the day.”
Moments of tension like that can unsettle even top-tier drivers – but Brundle didn’t absolve Piastri of responsibility.
“If Oscar's head dropped because of that then he shouldn't have let that happen.”
What followed was a brutal streak: crashes in Baku qualifying and the race, a jumped start, and six podium-less Grands Prix as the championship slipped away.
Brundle reflected on that collapse with trademark bluntness.
“At the next race he had a nightmare with two trips to the wall and a jumped start in Baku, and he wouldn't see the GP podium again until Qatar, a race weekend when he was head and shoulders above the pack, but only second place in the end due to the team choosing not to pit under the Lap 7 Safety Car,” he said.
And while McLaren’s Monza drama may have been one trigger, Brundle pointed to two wider forces at play.
“Two factors created this fallow phase for Oscar, firstly a generally accepted fact that on low grip surfaces he's yet to maximise his full potential, but also Max Verstappen and Red Bull found a rich vein of form in winning six of the last nine starts.”
Whether Monza was the psychological turning point or just an unfortunate chapter in a turbulent season, Brundle’s question lingers – and will likely follow Piastri into 2026: did the title slip away the moment he swapped places with Norris?
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