Norris-Piastri incident ‘threatens to derail McLaren harmony’

The move, according to Lando Norris, “anyone on the grid” would have caused the Briton and his McLaren team-mate and title rival Oscar Piastri to rekindle the feud.

After colliding with Max Verstappen’s Red Bull ahead of him, Norris slid into Piastri at Marina Bay’s third corner to avoid side-turns.

The incident threatens to derail the harmony that McLaren, through careful, thoughtful and open management, have so far managed to maintain between the two drivers.

Prior to the race, Norris had led Piastri by 25 points, but he only lost that lead when he placed third behind George Russell’s Mercedes and Verstappen, with Piastri trailing only in fourth place.

The Briton argued that moving past Piastri was in no way wrong.

“Anyone on the grid would have done exactly the same thing as I did”, he said. You shouldn’t be in Formula 1 if you don’t blame me for just putting my car in a big gap, then.

I don’t believe I harmed in any way. 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 gotten ahead of Oscar anyway because he would have had access to the track’s dirty side on the outside.

“So, of course, I need to go over it and see if there was anything I could have done differently.

“The last thing I want is to make contact with my team-mate, especially because all I get is questions from you guys.

“I am the one who can’t afford anything in the same way as he does.” If something like that occurs, I would also put myself at risk. But the FIA obviously thought it was fine, and the team did, too. That’s it, then.

Piastri was unsatisfied with the incident. He said over the team radio that the team’s decision to do nothing about it was” not fair”.

He said he needed to watch the incident before making any further comments after the race and that he needed to be more circumspect.

He said, “The two cars coming together are the main thing.” It’s never what we want, so I’ll go and have a look at it in more detail. “

This year, the Australian has already contributed to at least two contentious situations.

Early in the race, he was the dominant McLaren driver in Hungary, but Norris was given the option to defeat his team-mate, a choice that insiders in rival rival teams have questioned.

And in Italy in September, Piastri was ordered to let Norris back past him for second place after the Briton was delayed by a slow pit stop. Piastri argued that there was a consensus that a slow pit stop was merely a part of racing that needed to be accepted, but he accepted regardless.

He and the team discussed the issue in secret and came to terms with it.

But asked after Sunday’s race in Singapore whether he had any concerns that Norris may be getting preferential treatment, Piastri said:” No. “

Did he believe the entire team had been fair?

In the end, Piastri said, “Yes.” Could things have been better at certain points? Yes, but the entire team is ultimately learning, and if that makes sense, I’m very happy that the intentions are very well-intentioned.

We will have positive reviews, productive conversations, and, like after Canada, we’ll come back stronger and even more united, said team principal Andrea Stella.

Although the team “reviewed the incident right away,” Stella asserted that this contact is actually the result of a separate racing incident that occurred between Lando and Verstappen.

Stella added:” Oscar made some statements while he was in the car but that’s the kind of character that we want to have from our drivers. We ask them to make their position very clear, so we ask.

Our review must be thorough, thorough, and analytical, and it must consider our two drivers’ points of view. We will then come to a consensus on whether to simply confirm our initial conclusion or make a different conclusion.

” Every time we start our conversations with the drivers, we always remind ourselves, as a premise: ‘ This is hard’.

Because of this, the only thing that separate drivers can’t do is race together as a team because they want to pursue their goals. This is the foundation of our McLaren racing strategy.

The controversy deflected attention from McLaren clinching the constructors ‘ championship for the second year in a row.

McLaren are now 10th in the history books, moving them clear of Ferrari in the standings and past Williams in the standings.

One of the first times a team has won is with them. It equals Red Bull’s feat in winning with six races to go in 2023, although that was a 22-race season compared with 24 this year.

It is also less recent in percentage terms than McLaren’s 1988 title, which featured Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, and the outstanding McLaren-Honda MP4/4.

However, neither the winner’s car nor the car have exhibited the same level of superiority.

Red Bull won all but one race, and Verstappen all but three, in 2023. McLaren has the best car this year, but Sergio Perez suffered a bad fall after his two early victories that year, making it crucial for two drivers to consistently win.

So far in all 18, Piastri and Norris have won seven races, five of which were won by Piastri. Verstappen has four wins and Russell two.

McLaren’s success is remarkable because it occurred during a season that was meant to be one of the most competitive in a long time.

Ferrari put a lot of pressure on McLaren to win the title last year, so this year’s final race was expected to bring the teams together even more.

McLaren, though, caught them all on the hop with their MCL39 car, which has proved its superiority through devastating cornering speeds particularly in medium-speed turns, which are the most common on the calendar, and the best tyre usage on the grid.

It struggles with heavy braking and traction, and it struggles with over bumps. However, it is also the most effective on average, making it arguably the most attractive car on the grid with its elegant lines, especially when seen from the side or the rear three-quarters.

The key to this, says Stella, was” innovation”. Front and rear suspension designs have extreme levels of anti-lift and anti-dive to ensure a stable aerodynamic platform. in physics. And in cooling – the car has noticeably fewer and smaller vents than others, a key advantage when every extra opening of the bodywork has a cost in aerodynamic efficiency.

Stella stated, “There was a lot of innovation applied to the car from the previous year, and this required quite a bit of bravery at some point in the 2024 season to commit to the amount of changes that we applied for to the car from 2024 to 2025.”

McLaren’s advantage has reduced as the season heads into its final stages. Because Mercedes and Red Bull still have new parts coming to their cars, both of which had new front wings here, the characteristics of the three most recent circuits do not fit its capabilities.

McLaren made the decision because they were seeing declining profits from developing this car, which is typical when a design has such a competitive advantage in the first few seasons, and because they wanted to make sure they were well prepared for the new chassis and engine rules, which could turn F1 on its head.

Norris, though, is well aware of the scale of his team’s achievement, and the remarkable turnaround they have shown under Stella and chief executive officer Zak Brown from just over two years ago, when they started the 2023 season close to the back of the field.

Additionally, there is the budget cap, as well as the fact that as world champions, the rules forbid them from developing aerodynamically as much as any other team.

Another one, according to Norris, is fantastic. “If you look where we were three years ago, we have outdone every team in terms of development in a time when it is harder to do with more restrictions and less wind tunnel time.

The team has done “in a time when it should be more difficult than ever to dominate,” and that is exactly what they have done, giving us by extension the best car on the grid.

“That’s always a very nice thing to say,” It always puts a smile on your face. However, Oscar and I have done a lot of driving for us as a team, pushing each other and providing on weekends. That is unique to no other team.

” I’ve been with McLaren since I started. The time and place were drastically different from what we are now.

“To see the rise we’ve had, to see the changes, the atmosphere difference, and the leadership from Zak and Andrea has turned things around and made us the best team in the world,” says Zak and Andrea, “so that journey makes it more special – to know the downs, because that’s a lot of what it was back then.”