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

Tension at McLaren: Analysis of the Incident in Singapore

The Formula 1 season has reached a peak of tension, and the recent race in Singapore only served to highlight it. The focus of attention, surprisingly, was not George Russell’s victory nor McLaren’s constructors’ title, but the incident between teammates Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri on the first lap. The contact between the McLaren drivers was thoroughly analyzed, and the possible repercussions in the remaining six races of 2025. From the perspective of the FIA 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 it, which meant that the collision, which did not cause lasting damage to either car, did not even merit a post-race statement. However, within McLaren’s internal battle, the incident was more delicate. According to team rules, which promise fair play from the pit wall in exchange for avoiding contact between the drivers on the track, the incident was not sanctioned. But it adds to a growing list of small incidents and controversies that McLaren is cautiously managing as the season reaches its climax.

What Happened?

Norris, starting from fifth position, had a good start and was aggressive from the beginning, overtaking Kimi Antonelli and launching his McLaren towards the inside of his teammate at turn 1. Piastri left enough space for Norris to get alongside him at turn 2, but Norris found himself closing the gap as he approached turn 3 with Max Verstappen ahead. With barely centimeters separating them, Norris pulled alongside at the apex, but in doing so, he hit the rear of Verstappen’s Red Bull. In a split second, that contact caused the rear of Norris’s car to slide, resulting in a second collision with Piastri, who was carefully trying to chart a course on the outside of the curve. Norris suffered damage to the front wing from contact with Verstappen, but it was the contact with Piastri that secured him the third position. From that moment on, Norris seemed to be the fastest driver, and after chasing Verstappen, he finished the race on the podium ahead of his teammate, who was fourth.

“Well… that wasn’t very team-like, but oh well,” Piastri said over the team radio after the contact.

Oscar Piastri

To ensure his point was understood, he continued with a tense radio exchange with his race engineer, Tom Stallard.

• Lap 3: Piastri: “Are we okay with Lando pushing me off the track, or… what’s going on there?”
• Lap 4: Stallard: “I need you to focus on what we can do here. Control what’s controllable, mate.”
• Stallard: “No further action 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 it later.”
• Piastri: “That’s not fair. Sorry, that’s not fair.”
• Stallard: “Oscar, opportunity to review together. Focus on this race, mate.”
• Piastri: “Yes, but if he has to avoid another car by crashing into his teammate, it’s a pretty bad job of avoiding.”

However forceful Piastri’s radio comments may sound, they are totally understandable given his perspective of 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 they made clear to Piastri over the radio after the near-misses with Norris in both the Austrian and Hungarian Grand Prix, 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 be at the cost of a collision with him. But seen in its entirety and with the benefit of the camera angles of both cars, it’s clear that Norris couldn’t do much to avoid contact with Piastri after hitting Verstappen.

“I need to watch 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 I’ll come to my conclusion.”

Oscar Piastri

For Norris, who has been regularly 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 going on the inside and putting my car on the inside of a big hole, then, yeah, I think you shouldn’t be in Formula 1.

Lando Norris

“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 get in 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 those kinds of things happen. 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.”

Why Didn’t McLaren Intervene?

Regardless of which side of the discussion one is on, it is a clear fact that there was contact between the two drivers. Since last year, when McLaren first revealed the details of its “papaya rules”, there has been a clear directive that the two drivers can race but must do so cleanly and without collisions. After this year’s Italian Grand Prix, in which Piastri was told to give a position back to Norris after a failed pit stop sequence, it is also clear that the McLaren pit wall is willing to intervene if it considers that 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 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 that moment, we thought this contact was more the result of another racing situation, let’s say.”

Andrea Stella

“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 fully 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,” Stella said. “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.”

Andrea Stella

“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 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 towards Oscar. So we will have good reviews, good conversations.”

What’s Next for the Title Battle?

The importance of those conversations before the next round in Austin, Texas, cannot be overstated. 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 differences continue to diminish, as has happened in the last three races, the internal pressure at McLaren will only increase. That threatens to put more pressure 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 her team is under and the importance of facing 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, that this is difficult,” he said. “Because this is the only question in which, when you run together as a team, you cannot have exactly the same interest for the two drivers, because they want to pursue their aspiration, and this is a fundamental principle of the way we race at McLaren”.

Andrea Stella

“We want to protect this concept of ‘let 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, somehow, 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 through these, let’s say, difficult factors, it is because we have Lando and Oscar involved. They have been great individuals, great contributors, and that’s why it has been successful so far, and we will definitely work hard to make sure this is true for the rest of the season, and the years to come, in which we will continue racing with Lando and Oscar.” But with all the good will in the world, the rules of engagement between two pilots can only do so much. In 50/50 situations, each individual will interpret those rules to suit their own interests and will discuss the point later. There is too much at stake to do otherwise. For McLaren, the situation will only become more difficult to judge from now on.