{"id":4476,"date":"2025-10-10T14:31:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T06:31:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ywo.id.au\/blog\/?p=4476"},"modified":"2025-10-10T16:15:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T08:15:19","slug":"poor-management-at-the-singapore-formula-1-grand-prix-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ywo.id.au\/blog\/2025\/10\/10\/poor-management-at-the-singapore-formula-1-grand-prix-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Poor management at the Singapore Formula 1 Grand Prix 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last weekend’s Singapore Formula 1 Grand Prix<\/a> saw a few key developments: (1) the McLaren team securing this year’s Formula 1 World Constructors’ Championship, and by a significant margin; (2) minor but controversial contact between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri’s cars on the first lap; and (3) poor management on a few fronts, in my opinion\u2014by Formula 1 management, McLaren team management, and by Mercedes team management.<\/p>\n

In light of the contact between the two McLaren cars, and the controversy raised about the team’s internal politics, I think the constructors’ championship victory by the team lost some of its sheen in many people’s eyes. I do not think that is warranted. Any Formula 1 team is far more than its leaders and managers, and far more than its drivers. As with many other human endeavours, there is a lot of work going on behind the scenes; in this case, I can think of the engineering (in all its various motor racing-related specialties, including aerodynamics), race strategy, human resources, and public relations aspects as just the beginning. McLaren’s team management has come under heavy criticism (more on that below), but we must not forget that there are many people who are not in the spotlight, but have put in hard, dedicated work to help the team win this competition. We still have six races (a quarter of the season) to go, and McLaren’s tally cannot be passed by any other team. Due credit to the McLaren team as a whole for a dominant Formula 1 World Constructors’ Championship in 2025.<\/p>\n

Much has already been said about the contact between Mr. Norris and Mr. Piastri, and the subsequent disadvantage to the latter driver. Much has been opined about the so-called ‘Papaya Rules’ that McLaren team management has put in place for this season. Having seen the incident a few times and listened to various commentaries on it, I think it was just a normal racing incident in itself, but in the context of the internal policies at McLaren, I do think it was unfair to Mr. Piastri. Much has gone back and forth since the Hungarian Formula 1 Grand Prix last year, where he secured his first Formula 1 race victory after McLaren chose to put Mr. Norris’s car first (giving him an advantage) and then ordering him to surrender the place back to Mr. Piastri. I remember thinking at the time that McLaren really should have followed conventional strategy and pitted Mr. Piastri’s car first (as he was ahead of Mr. Norris) … and all of the political mess at that race could have been avoided.<\/p>\n

In any case, the moral issue here is that two parties (the two drivers) were operating under a common understanding, one of those drivers crossed a boundary, and team management then chose to take no compensatory action\u2014when it had shown quite clearly this season that it was prepared to do so. I think an important point to remember is that the contact was pretty clearly unintentional. Ill advised, and not in the spirit of the team’s rules, but not intentional. The problem is that McLaren team management should then have stepped in (given that it has taken an interventionist stance through the season) … and it did not. Poor management by McLaren’s team management, on this front.<\/p>\n

This was exacerbated by Formula 1 management going ahead with a quick ‘team celebration’ of the World Constructors’ Championship victory on the podium\u2014while Mr. Piastri was still attending to official media commitments. Apparently, neither of the two McLaren drivers was supposed to be in that celebration (as all drivers have official media duties just after the race), but it seems that\u2014perhaps unintentionally\u2014Mr. Norris was scooped up by the group, so that he ended up on the podium with the team when that might not have been the original plan. Even if we accept that none of this was in bad faith by any party, there was still massive damage to the McLaren team’s public image when the video feed being transmitted across the world showed Mr. Piastri still in the media area while the large screen he was walking past showed his team (including Mr. Norris) celebrating. On this point, while it is understandable how things transpired, I think Formula 1 management (and perhaps its scheduling and public relations arm) has done a disservice to the McLaren team.<\/p>\n

If you have been following the recent races, I think you will not be surprised by my comments above. Lurking in the background, though, is what I consider another example of poor management\u2014by the Mercedes team. George Russell put in a superb performance throughout the weekend to qualify on pole position and then win the race. He has also been doing well throughout the season, and is currently fourth in the World Drivers’ Championship standings, with only Mr. Piastri, Mr. Norris, and defending champion Max Verstappen (Red Bull) ahead of him. The first two drivers (both excellent in their own right) have been blessed with an unmatched car this season, and the third driver is simply in a class of his own, so while this season’s Mercedes car is far from being a ‘bad’ car, there is no doubt that Mr. Russell has put in a sterling performance this season. And, six races from the end of the season, he still does not have a contract renewal with his team for next season. No doubt, there are machinations in progress behind the scenes from all sides, but this seems to be a glaring example of a team undervaluing its best driver, to the point of disrespect.<\/p>\n

One thing I forgot to mention earlier: Formula 1’s television coverage of the event has been widely panned, as it seems whoever was in charge of overall direction missed a lot of overtaking and other relevant developments during the race, in favour of … showing various celebrities and drivers’ associates watching the race. Another example of poor management.<\/p>\n

As always, the parody version of the race<\/a> by Lollipopman Comics on YouTube is well worth watching.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last weekend’s Singapore Formula 1 Grand Prix saw a few key developments: (1) the McLaren team securing this year’s Formula 1 World Constructors’ Championship, and by a significant margin; (2) minor but controversial contact between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri’s cars on the first lap; and (3) poor management on a few fronts, in my… Continue reading Poor management at the Singapore Formula 1 Grand Prix 2025<\/span> →<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[431,481,444,463,440,441,449,432,448,320,462],"class_list":["post-4476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-motor-racing","tag-formula-1","tag-george-russell","tag-lando-norris","tag-lollipopman-comics","tag-max-verstappen","tag-mclaren","tag-mercedes","tag-oscar-piastri","tag-red-bull","tag-singapore","tag-youtube"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ywo.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ywo.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ywo.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ywo.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ywo.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4476"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.ywo.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4488,"href":"https:\/\/www.ywo.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4476\/revisions\/4488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ywo.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ywo.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ywo.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}