Theory ties McLaren’s Las Vegas DSQ to decision to replace Daniel Ricciardo

Former F1 team manager Peter Windsor believes McLaren’s double disqualification at the Las Vegas Grand Prix can be traced back to their decision to replace Daniel Ricciardo.

After a very poor second season at McLaren, Ricciardo was replaced by Oscar Piastri for the 2023 F1 season.

The Australian couldn’t adapt to the peculiar handling characteristics of McLaren’s F1 challengers, and he was dominated by teammate Lando Norris.

Piastri proved to be a significant upgrade in his first season, even though Norris continued to have the upper hand.

This was the case again in 2024, with Norris coming out on top, even if Piastri was able to take a couple of victories.

McLaren started 2025 with a dominant car that seemed to suit Piastri more than Norris, giving the former momentum in the championship.

Norris is now one victory away from taking the title in Qatar, despite being disqualified in Las Vegas.

Windsor has suggested that Norris could have had the title wrapped up already had Ricciardo still been in the team.

“From day one, I’ve been saying it was a mistake to hire Oscar Piastri as Lando Norris’ teammate at McLaren if you already had Daniel Ricciardo, because that was a really good combination,” Windsor said.

“That was a combination of the ilk of Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello or Felipe Massa, or Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez.

“They dovetailed really well, they both brought a lot to the team in different ways.

“Had they kept that driver pairing, I think Lando would possibly have clinched the championship by now. But I don’t think they’d be in the situation they are now whereby they’ve won the constructors’ championship.”

With both drivers still in title contention, Windsor believes McLaren are pushing the limits with car setup, possibly explaining their disqualifications.

“You would think if any team was to leave a bit of margin when it comes to ride height, on a sensitive circuit, it would be McLaren,” he said. “On the contrary, because they’ve still got this race going on between Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, they cannot do anything but run the cars as near the optimum as they possibly can.

“That’s not a great situation for the team to have been put into, for the engineers or anyone.

“Having this competitive infighting between two sides of the garage, even if you try to have the glad-happy let’s all sit around the campfire and sing folk songs and let’s all be one big family approach that McLaren now have — it never works. Because race drivers are super competitive and McLaren shouldn’t be in the position they find themselves in, having to be so on the limit with everything.”

McLaren regret?

Without the disqualification, Norris would have been 30 points ahead of Piastri heading into the final two rounds, while Verstappen was 42 points off.

Norris effectively had one hand on the title, leading to Windsor’s claim that McLaren should have focused on consolidating a solid podium rather than chasing the last tenth of a second to challenge Verstappen.

“But at the end of the day, if you’re running Lando Norris’ car, you should be saying, ‘He’s just had two good wins, we’re going to Vegas now, which is a bit iffy. We’ve had a few manhole covers come up, it can be a bit bumpy, the track surface — let’s just not go anywhere near the ride height or any other regulations which could be a problem in those conditions — and we’ll focus on Qatar and Abu Dhabi, more straightforward racetracks,” he added.

“We’ll just make sure Lando’s on the podium on Vegas — that’s how you do it. But they couldn’t do that because Lando’s still conscious of wanting to beat Oscar Piastri.

“It comes back to my original point. All of this stuff, the disqualification of the two cars can be traced back to the very poor decision to replace Daniel Ricciardo.

“It’s a little bit like Ferrari replacing Carlos Sainz. It’s against the grain, it’s not a natural thing to be doing. Daniel Ricciardo was a perfect teammate for Lando Norris.”