Norris vs Piastri: Tension at McLaren after crash in Singapore GP

Tension at McLaren after the Singapore Grand Prix: Norris and Piastri in the spotlight

The Formula 1 Drivers’ Championship is reaching notable levels of tension, and the Singapore Grand Prix was no exception. The main focus on Sunday was not George Russell’s surprising victory or McLaren’s constructors’ title, but an incident between teammates Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. The contact on the first lap between the McLaren drivers was analyzed meticulously, with potential implications for the six remaining races of the 2025 season. From the perspective of the FIA’s racing rules, the incident was considered a simple racing incident, something common on the first lap of a Grand Prix. The stewards decided not to investigate, which means that the collision, which did not cause lasting damage to any of the cars, did not warrant a post-race declaration. However, within McLaren’s internal battle, the incident was more delicate. Team rules promise fair play from the pit wall in exchange for avoiding contact on the track, but the incident was not addressed. This adds to a growing list of minor incidents and controversies that McLaren is carefully managing as the season draws to a close.

What exactly happened?

From fifth on the grid, Norris got a good start and was aggressive from the beginning, overtaking Kimi Antonelli and lunging towards his teammate on the inside at Turn 1. Piastri left enough space for Norris to come through at Turn 2, but Norris found himself in a compromised situation approaching Turn 3 with Max Verstappen ahead. With only centimeters between them, Norris pulled alongside at the apex, but in doing so hit the rear of Verstappen’s Red Bull. In a split second, that contact caused the rear of Norris’s car to slide sideways, resulting in a second collision with Piastri, who was carefully trying to chart a course around the outside of the corner. Norris suffered damage to the front wing from contact with Verstappen, but it was the contact with Piastri that ensured he would take third position. From that moment on, Norris appeared to be the fastest driver, and after chasing Verstappen, he finished the race on the podium ahead of his teammate, who finished fourth.

“That wasn’t very team-like, but oh well,” Piastri said on the radio to the team after the contact.

Oscar Piastri

In lap 3, Piastri asked on the radio: “Are we okay with Lando pushing me off the track, or… what’s going on there?” His race engineer, Tom Stallard, replied: “Oscar, we are looking at it. Let me get back to you.” In lap 4, Stallard communicated: “I need you to focus on what we can do here. Control what you can control, mate.” And he added: “There are no further actions from the stewards. As a team, we can see that Lando had to avoid Verstappen, so we will not take any action during the race. We can review later.”

Piastri responded: “That’s not fair. I’m sorry, that’s not fair.”

Oscar Piastri

Stallard finished the conversation by saying: “Oscar, opportunity to review together. Focus on this race, friend.”

Piastri concluded: “Yes, but if he has to avoid another car by crashing into his teammate, it’s a pretty… bad job to avoid”.

Oscar Piastri

Piastri’s radio comments, although forceful, are 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 seemed that Norris lost the rear of his car and crashed into his teammate. In a season where McLaren has reiterated the golden rule of avoiding collisions, a message that was made clear to Piastri over the radio after near-accidents with Norris in both the Austrian Grand Prix and the Hungarian GP, it seemed that Norris’s aggressive approach in the first three corners led to contact between the teammates. Even with the knowledge that Norris was trying to avoid the car in front, Piastri signaled over the radio that doing so shouldn’t result in a collision with him. However, upon seeing the complete replay and camera perspectives of both cars, it’s clear that Norris couldn’t avoid contact with Piastri after hitting Verstappen.

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

Oscar Piastri

For Norris, who has been criticised for not being aggressive enough on the first lap of races, the space on the inside of Piastri was always going to invite a move at Turn 3.

“Anyone on the grid would have done exactly the same as me,” he said. “So I think if I get blamed 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.”

Lando Norris

Norris went on to say: “So, you know, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with what I did. Of course, I miscalculated a little how close I was to Max, but that’s racing. Nothing else happened, and I’m sure I would have finished 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 review it, of course. I need to look at things and see if there was anything I could have done better.”

“The last thing I want is to make contact with my teammate, especially because all I get are questions from [the media]. So, you know, I’m the one who can’t afford anything compared to him. It would put me at risk if that kind of thing happens. So, yes, I’ll see what I can do about that next time, but the FIA obviously thought it was okay, and the team too. So that’s all,” Norris concluded.

Lando Norris

Why didn’t McLaren intervene?

Regardless of which side of the discussion you are on, it is a fact that there was contact between the two drivers. Since last year, when McLaren first revealed details of its “papaya rules”, there has been a clear directive that the two drivers can race, but must do so cleanly and without colliding. After this year’s Italian Grand Prix, in which Piastri was told to concede a position to Norris after a failed pit stop sequence, it is also clear that the McLaren pit wall is willing to intervene if it feels a driver has gained a position in a way that is not considered fair. Therefore, it is logical that, if Norris had unfairly gained a position by colliding with Piastri, he might have asked his drivers to swap positions. When asked why McLaren didn’t intervene, team principal Andrea Stella said the pit wall believed the contact between their cars was the result of the initial collision with Verstappen and, effectively, a racing incident.

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

Andrea Stella

Stella added: “We’ll see if there’s any learning and anything we need to refine in terms of our approach, but I think this will only lead to some good conversations.” Stella said he completely understood the frustration shown by Piastri over the radio, but reiterated that McLaren has asked its drivers to vent openly over the radio rather than run with pent-up frustration.

“Obviously, Oscar made some statements while he was in the car,” said Stella. “But that’s the kind of character we want to have from our drivers: they have to make their position very clear. That’s what we ask of them. At the same time, we have to put things in perspective: the perspective of a driver who is in a Formula 1 car with the intensity of it being the first lap. And the perspective that he obviously just saw Lando move towards him, but we know that Lando, in reality, had contact with Verstappen and oversteered with Oscar. So we will have good reviews, good conversations”.

Andrea Stella

What’s next for the title battle?

The importance of those conversations before the next race in Austin, Texas, cannot be underestimated. 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 reduced the gap with Piastri to 63 points.

If those gaps continue to close, as they have in the last three races, the internal pressure at McLaren will only increase. That threatens to put further pressure on the team’s racing rules, which must also take into account a growing list of precedents and controversies. Stella is fully aware of the pressure her team is under and the importance of arriving at each race weekend with all parties in the same tune.

“Every time we start our conversations with the drivers, we always remind ourselves, as a premise, this is difficult,” he said. “Because this is the only matter in which, when you compete together as a team, you cannot have exactly the same interest for both drivers, because they want to pursue their aspiration, and this is a fundamental principle of how we race at McLaren.”

Andrea Stella

Stella concluded by saying: “We want to protect this concept of ‘letting them run’. We know that as soon as you adopt this concept, you face difficulties, and we remind ourselves of this, but it is within this awareness, self-awareness, in a way, that we then develop our conversation. You need to be thorough and you need to have integrity when addressing that, and I am very proud of the way Lando and Oscar have been part of the process so far, because if we have been able to navigate these, let’s say, difficult factors, it is because we have Lando and Oscar involved. They have been great individuals, great collaborators, and that’s why it has been successful so far, and we will definitely work hard to ensure that this is true for the rest of the season and the years to come, in which we will continue to compete with Lando and Oscar.” But with all the good will in the world, the 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 will argue the point later. There is too much at stake to do otherwise. It will be even more difficult for McLaren to judge from here.