McLaren walk Singapore tightrope in managing Norris, Piastri

SINGAPORE — It says a lot about the rising tensions in the Formula 1 drivers’ championship that the main talking point on Sunday night in Singapore was not George Russell‘s surprise victory or McLaren’s defense of its constructors’ title.

Even in the early hours of Monday morning, the opening-lap contact between McLaren teammates Lando Norris and Oscar Plastri was being micro-analyzed — along with the potential ramifications at the remaining six races of 2025.

Viewed through the prism of the FIA’s racing rules, the contact between teammates was nothing but a racing incident — the sort of which regularly occurs on the opening lap of a grand prix. Within the space of a minute, the stewards noted the incident and decided not to investigate, meaning the collision, which caused no lasting damage on either car, did not warrant so much as a postrace statement.

Within the context of McLaren’s internal title battle, however, the incident was always going to be more delicate. According to the team’s rules of engagement, which promise fairness from the pit wall in exchange for no contact between drivers on track, the incident was not acted upon. But it adds to a growing list of minor incidents and controversies that McLaren is delicately managing as the season reaches its climax.

What happened?

From fifth on the grid, Norris made a good getaway and went aggressive at the start, passing Some Antonelli away from his grid spot and launching his McLaren to the inside of his teammate in Turn 1. Piastri left enough space for Norris to draw alongside through Turn 2, but Norris would always be in a closing gap as the pair approached Turn 3 with Max Verstappen ahead.

With mere inches between them, Norris drew level at the apex, but in doing so clipped the rear of Verstappen’s Red Bull. In a split second, that contact saw the rear of Norris’ car slide sideways, resulting in a second collision with Piastri, who was carefully trying to plot a course around the outside of the corner.

Norris received front-wing damage from the contact with Verstappen, but it was the contact with Piastri that ensured he gained third place. From that moment onward, Norris appeared to be the faster driver, and after hunting down Verstappen, he finished the race on the podium ahead of his teammate in fourth.

“I mean … that wasn’t very team like, but sure,” Piastri said over team radio after the contact. To make sure his point was understood, he followed up with a terse radio exchange with race engineer Tom Stallard.

Lap 3

Piastri: “Are we cool with Lando barging me out of the way, or … what’s the go there?”

Stallard: “Oscar, we are looking at it. Let me get back to you.”

Lap 4

Stallard: “I need you to focus on what we can do here. Control the controllables, mate.”

Stallard: “No further action from the stewards. As a team, we can see Lando had to avoid Verstappen, so we won’t take any action during the race. We can review further afterwards.”

Piastri: “That’s not fair. Sorry, that’s not fair.”

Stallard: “Oscar, opportunity to review together. Focus on this race, mate.”

Piastri: “Yeah, but if he has to avoid another car by crashing into his teammate, that’s a pretty s— job of avoiding.”

As punchy as Piastri’s radio comments may sound, they are entirely understandable given his perspective on the incident. From the onboard camera of Car 81, the contact between Norris and Verstappen was not visible, and it looked as though Norris lost the rear of his car and careered into his teammate.

In a season in which McLaren has reiterated a golden rule of avoiding collisions — a message it made clear to Piastri over team radio following near misses with Norris at both the Austrian Grand Prix and Hungarian GP — it looked for all the world to Piastri that Norris’ aggressive approach to the first three corners led to contact between the teammates. Even with the knowledge that Norris was attempting to avoid the car ahead, Piastri made the point over team radio that doing so should not come at the expense of a collision with him.

But watched in full flow and with the benefit of camera angles from both cars, it’s clear that Norris could do little to prevent the contact with Piastri after he had hit Verstappen.

“I need to look more at the replays to know exactly what happened,” Piastri said after the race. “I think the main thing is the two cars coming together is never what we want. I’ll go and have a look at it in more detail and come to my conclusion then.”

For Norris, who has regularly faced criticism for not being aggressive enough on the opening lap of races, the space on the inside of Piastri was always going to invite a move into Turn 3.

“Anyone on the grid would have done exactly the same thing as I did,” he said. “So I think if you fault me for just going on the inside and putting my car on the inside of a big gap, then, yeah, I think you shouldn’t be in Formula 1.

“So, you know, I don’t think there was anything wrong that I did. Of course, I misjudged a little bit how close I was to Max, but that’s racing. Nothing happened otherwise, and I’m sure I still would have ended up ahead of Oscar anyway because I was on the inside and he would have had the dirty side of the track on the outside. So, I need to go review it, of course. I need to look at things and see if there was something I could have done better.

“The last thing I want is to make contact with my teammate, especially because all I get is questions from [the media]. So, you know, I’m the one that can’t afford anything compared to him. I would put myself at risk just as much if that kind of thing happens. So, yeah, I’ll see what I can do with it next time, but the FIA obviously thought it was fine, and the team did too. So that’s it.”

Why did McLaren not intervene?

Regardless of which side of the argument you fall on, it’s a clear fact that there was contact between the two drivers. Ever since last year, when McLaren first divulged details of its “papaya rules,” there has been a clear directive that the two drivers are allowed to race but must do so in a clean way and without colliding.

Following this year’s Italian Grand Prix, in which Piastri was told to give a position back to Norris following a botched pit-stop sequence, it’s also clear that McLaren’s pit wall is willing to intervene if it feels a driver has gained a position in a way that is not considered fair. It stands to reason, therefore, that if Norris had unfairly gained a position by colliding with Piastri, it could have asked its drivers to switch places.

Asked why McLaren did not intervene, team principal Andrea Stella said it was the pit wall’s belief that the contact between its cars was a result of the initial collision with Verstappen and effectively a racing incident.

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“In terms of the contact between our two drivers, this contact is, in reality, a consequence of another racing situation that happened between Lando and Verstappen,” Stella said. “So definitely, because there was a contact in itself, this will lead to a review and some good conversations. But in the moment, we thought that this contact was more a result of another racing situation, let’s say.

“We will see if there’s any learning and anything that we need to fine tune in terms of our approach, but I think this will just lead to some good conversations.”

Stella said he fully understood the frustration demonstrated by Piastri over team radio, but reiterated that McLaren has asked its drivers to vent openly on team radio rather than race on with pent-up frustration.

“Obviously, Oscar made some statements while he was in the car,” Stella said. “But that’s the kind of character that we want to have from our drivers — they have to make their position very clear. That’s what we ask them.

“At the same time, we have to put things in perspective: the perspective of a driver that is in a Formula 1 car with the intensity of it being the first lap. And the perspective that obviously just saw Lando moving on to him, but we know that Lando, in realty, had a contact with Verstappen and oversteered on to Oscar. So we will have good reviews, good conversations.”

What next for the title battle?

The importance of those conversations ahead of the next round in Austin, Texas, cannot be understated. With six races remaining in the championship, Piastri now leads Norris by 22 points, while Verstappen, who finished in second place ahead of both McLarens, has closed the gap behind Piastri to 63 points.

If those gaps continue to close — as they have done in the past three races — the internal pressure at McLaren will only ramp up. That threatens to put increased strain on the team’s racing rules, which also have to take into account a growing list of precedents and controversies.

Stella is fully aware of the pressure his team is under and the importance of going into each race weekend with all parties on the same page.

“Every time we start our conversations with the drivers, we always remind ourselves, as a premise, this is hard,” he said. “Because this is the only matter in which, when you race together as a team, you can’t have exactly the same interest for the two drivers, because they want to pursue their aspiration, and this is a foundational principle of the way we are racing at McLaren.

“We want to protect this ‘let them race’ concept. We know that as soon as you adopt this concept, you face difficulties, and we remind ourselves, but it’s within this awareness, self-consciousness, in a way, that then we develop our conversation.

“You need to be thorough, and you need to have integrity in approaching that, and I’m very proud of the way Lando and Oscar have been part of the process so far, because if we have been able to navigate through these, let’s say, difficult factors, it’s because we have Lando and Oscar involved. They’ve been just great individuals, great contributors, and that’s why it’s been successful so far, and definitely we will work hard to make sure this is true for the remainder of the season, and the years ahead, in which we will keep on racing with Lando and Oscar.”

But with all the goodwill in the world, rules of engagement between two drivers can only do so much. In 50/50 situations, each individual will interpret those rules to suit their own interests and argue the point later. Too much is on the line to do otherwise.

It will only get tougher for McLaren to adjudicate from here.