The one regret McLaren may face after ‘overmanaging’ drivers in F1 title race

F1 commentator Alex Jacques has explained why McLaren may regret ‘overmanaging’ their two drivers in this year’s title race.

McLaren are still in prime position to see one of their drivers become world champion at the end of the year.

Lando Norris is nine points ahead of McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri with four rounds to go.

Max Verstappen is 39 points behind and will need to effectively win every race to have a shot at an unlikely fifth world title.

Despite McLaren’s dominance throughout the year, they have intervened on several occasions.

In a bid to keep things fair between Norris and Piastri, McLaren have continued to impose ‘papaya rules’.

Piastri was ordered to lift off and let Norris back through at the Italian Grand Prix.

A slow pit stop for Norris allowed Piastri to get ahead, but McLaren intervened.

McLaren then imposed “repercussions” on Norris after his aggressive Lap 1 overtake on Piastri in Singapore.

However, these consequences were removed after their Lap 1 clash in the Austin sprint.

Since then, the momentum is with Norris, who stormed to a dominant sprint race victory in Sao Paulo on Saturday.

McLaren have “over-managed” Norris-Piastri

McLaren wrapped up their second constructors’ title in two years at the Singapore Grand Prix.

Many critics felt that, due to their significant advantage, McLaren should have left their two drivers to race freely.

Jacques, F1 TV’s lead commentator, feels McLaren could regret their intervention, particularly if Verstappen takes the title.

“It’s not the intensity of the McLaren civil war between Hamilton and Alonso,” Jacques said via James Allen on F1.

“So it’s not had that pure visceral, almost hatred at points between the two contenders.

“And that was almost too good to be true. New contender, current world champion, they let Kimi in at the end on the rails.

“There are parallels that McLaren have potentially overmanaged the situation. I think if they’d continued to have the car advantage, it would have made sense to get the constructors’, manage it until you’ve won the constructors and then leave it alone.

“I think they have probably overstepped when you’ve got drivers on the radio going: ‘I don’t think that was a fair penalty, swap us over. There’s a slow stop, swap them over. Oh, we were wheel-banging at turn three, swap them over’.

“This is motor racing and I think potentially if they were to let Max in, I think their regret would be that they over-managed two very capable, proven drivers.”