Herbert: Piastri should ignore McLaren orders to win title

That is the view of Johnny Herbert who warned that McLaren might drop him but Ferrari would take him without hesitation.

Speaking ahead of the Abu Dhabi decider, the former F1 winner also said Max Verstappen will relish the chance to intimidate Team Papaya in a Title fight they are not accustomed to handling.

Herbert said: “If Oscar, for example, went against the team in Abu Dhabi and said, ‘No, I'm not letting him pass,’ they might get so miffed that say you've gone against the will of the team and it’s breached your contract. So, we're going to drop you.

“If it's a world championship, I'd rather go against the team and have that trophy on my mantlepiece," he added. "But going against the team is a risky thing.

"But if he's in a mindset where he feels he doesn’t like the team environment, then who knows what he might do. For instance, could Ferrari take Oscar? Probably yes, the way things are going and if Lewis calls it a day.”

Herbert expects Verstappen to be at full force, pushing the McLarens into stress and discomfort. He said: “That's it, that's all Max is going to be focused on. He will do what he does best, which is to run as fast as he possibly can, making it difficult for the other drivers behind him.

“He’ll enjoy that," he continued. "He will get a thrill from knowing that they are almost in a bit of pain and the stress that they're going through, where he's actually probably singing along looking in his mirrors and going, ‘I've got you!’ It’s a lovely, lovely situation for him to be in. He intimidates everybody.”

Herbert believes Verstappen will be smiling through every session, and added: “He'll smile every single lap from that free practice on Friday all the way through to that very last lap and if he achieves it, there will be a very, very happy Max Verstappen.

"He will have achieved a wondrous championship through grit and determination and that never-give-up factor which Max has always had. If he makes it, it will be his purest win because he's been sublime.”

Herbert said McLaren are not used to this level of pressure and accused them of allowing Verstappen and Red Bull to dictate the psychological battle. He explained: “McLaren haven't been in this position for a long time. But that's an excuse. With all the tools that they've got that should not be something that I would expect to have come into play.”

He added: “The one thing that works in Red Bull’s favour, is they only have one car. McLaren on the other hand have the two cars and they're trying to play fair.”

Herbert pointed to Verstappen’s comment about Piastri: “Max was asked what he thought Oscar would do if he was told to let Lando through. He said, ‘He’d tell him to ‘F’ off.’ That’s Max playing the game, but it's a game that McLaren is allowing him to play.”

He said Red Bull’s strength lies in decisive execution: “Red Bull have always been the very best at making those split-second decisions. They’ve done this for quite a few years. It’s not the human in many respects who are making those decisions. It’s the software that is telling them to. But Red Bull do go outside that box.”

Herbert believes McLaren must be willing to defy their own systems: “That's something that has got to happen with McLaren when we go into the very last race. Yes, they have all those tools, and you've got to rely on them to a very high degree, but there are occasions where discussion with the driver.

"That is sometimes a better scenario than it is just trying to play the safe game. You can't play the safe game all the time. Red Bull are very good at pushing the boundaries and putting other teams and drivers under pressure," Herbert reckoned.

Herbert sees Verstappen’s mentality as a major weapon: “That dynamic of Max not taking a risk is not in his DNA. He'll be pushing the boundaries as he always does. He was asked before the race how he was feeling and he said, ‘Ok, not a problem.’”

He added: “Afterwards, he was asked about the Championship and whether he now had a good chance and if he did win would it be his greatest and he said, ‘If it happens great, if it doesn't it doesn't.’”

Herbert believes Verstappen’s attitude puts significant pressure on McLaren: “Max has got a really powerful mentality. And his attitude is also a release valve and he can just get on with the job and push himself as hard as he can. He can do no more than win the race. If he is able to do that it puts a lot of pressure on the two McLaren drivers but it also puts that extra pressure on McLaren as well.”

On potential team orders, Herbert was blunt: “There is going to be that point where if Oscar is ahead of Lando and it's looking as if it’s going more towards Max, they've got to tell Oscar to let Lando pass. But are they going to do that? With everything they've been saying so far, they won’t be doing that.”

He warned the team could lose everything: “Sometimes that team decision has to come into play. The awful thing is if they still play by the rules, so to speak, they could end up empty handed and that would be a dreadful state of affairs. I'm sure I remember Zak Brown saying that if they didn’t win the drivers’ championship, then, ‘C’est La Vie.’ I thought that was a bit of a strange one. Papaya Rules can always bite you in the bum. And I think this year, certain decisions they've had to make have bitten them in the bum.”

Herbert retains belief in Norris’ mindset: “I think Lando has got more than enough mental capacity to absorb all the pressure that's on him because he's only got to finish on the podium if Max wins.”

Herbert said failure to secure the championship would damage the relationship between drivers and the team. He said: “From a drivers’ perspective, absolutely.

"You put all these efforts in, there's all the risk that's involved with driving one of these cars anyway. And then it gets robbed from you because of team decisions that came into play during that particular season.”

He added: “You sort of lose that respect. You probably get over it to a degree, but initially you'll lose that respect when a driver feels that they’ve been let down in ways that have hampered my chance of winning that first world championship.”

Herbert stressed the responsibility ultimately lies with the driver: “At times like this you've got to rely on the driver to do the job.

"That's why he's employed, he's employed to be the very, very best, be reliable for the team and if he makes an error then he is the one who is going to lose out.” C

Johnny Herbert quotes, thanks to Vision4Sport providers of Formula 1 tickets and packages