Coulthard criticizes McLaren’s handling of team orders
David Coulthard has voiced pointed criticism of McLaren’s approach to team orders during their triumphant 2025 Formula 1 campaign, arguing that race engineers ought never to be tasked with delivering such instructions to drivers, reports BritPanorama.
The former McLaren driver, who competed for the Woking outfit between 1996 and 2004, believes the relationship between a driver and their engineer must remain sacrosanct. “The only criticism I would have is that I don’t like it when the engineer, because that bond between the driver and the engineer for me has to be absolute,” Coulthard remarked on The Red Flags Podcast.
Coulthard contends that preserving this trust is paramount. He employed a vivid military metaphor to illustrate his position, saying, “I’d liken it to if you guys are in the trenches together and someone blows the whistle back in the day to go out and fight the enemy.” He stressed, “You’ve got to know that you’re both going at the same time. You’re not hiding behind, you and you’re not hiding you, you’re there shoulder-to-shoulder.”
The Scot was emphatic about where responsibility should lie. “So I think that when they do give the move over, don’t race, type instructions that should come from the team principal or the sporting director. It should not come from the race engineer.”
The Monza incident proved particularly troubling for the former driver to witness. A sluggish pit stop for Lando Norris at the Italian Grand Prix resulted in Oscar Piastri being instructed to relinquish second place to his teammate. Coulthard admitted that McLaren’s handling of the situation left him feeling “uncomfortable” as Piastri found himself on the wrong end of a six-point swing.
The pair also collided in both Canada and Singapore during the season, while Piastri bore responsibility for contact in Austin. Throughout this turbulent period, Max Verstappen steadily closed the championship gap, adding pressure to an already fraught intra-team dynamic.
Despite the internal tensions, McLaren secured their first clean sweep of both championships since 1998. Norris overturned a 34-point deficit to Piastri while simultaneously fending off a resurgent Verstappen, ultimately claiming the drivers’ title by just two points at Abu Dhabi.
The team has since moved to address its management structure, with Will Courtenay joining from Red Bull earlier than anticipated to work alongside team principal Andrea Stella. This appointment provides McLaren with an additional senior figure who could assume responsibility for delivering the more contentious strategic decisions, potentially sparing race engineers from compromising their relationships with drivers.
Coulthard’s insights underline the delicate balance teams must maintain in fostering a resilient alliance between driver and engineer, especially in a high-pressure sport where every decision can have dramatic consequences.
