Norris-Piastri incident ‘threatens to derail harmony despite McLaren’s achievement’

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.

Norris slid into Piastri on the exit of the third corner at Marina Bay after a bump with Max Verstappen’s Red Bull ahead of him slid his car sideways.

The incident threatens to undermine the relationship between McLaren and the drivers, which has so far been maintained by McLaren through careful, thoughtful, and open management.

Prior to the race at Marina Bay, Norris had led Piastri by 25 points, but he only managed three points after coming in third behind George Russell’s Mercedes and Verstappen, with Piastri just in fourth place.

The Briton insisted he had done nothing wrong in getting past Piastri.

He claimed that “anyone on the grid would have done what I did.” You shouldn’t be in F1 if you blame me for taking a big gap.

” I was a little bit too close to Max, but that’s racing. Without his having the dirty track on the outside, I’m sure I would have jumped ahead of Oscar anyway.

“Of course, I need to go over it, and speaking with my team-mate is the last thing I want.” I am the one who can’t afford anything. If something like that came about, I would put myself in danger as well.

“I’ll look, but the FIA obviously thought it was good, and the team did as well,” he said.

Piastri was unhappy about the incident. He claimed over the radio that it was unfair for the team to decide not to take any action.

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

” The main thing is the two cars coming together, “he said”. I’ll go look at it in more detail because it never comes our way.

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

In Hungary in August, he was the lead McLaren driver early in the race but Norris was allowed to used a divergent strategy to beat his team-mate, a decision insiders in rival teams have questioned.

After the Briton was delayed by a slow pit stop, Piastri was given the order to let Norris back into second place in Italy in September. 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.

Behind the scenes, he was not happy about that situation, and he and the team held talks to resolve it.

When asked about concerns that Norris might be receiving preferential treatment after Sunday’s race in Singapore, Piastri responded, “No.

Did he believe the entire team had been fair?

” Ultimately, yes, “Piastri said”. At some points, could things have improved? 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.

Stella said that although the team had reviewed the incident in its immediate aftermath”, this contact is, in reality, a consequence of another racing situation that happened between Lando and Verstappen”.

Oscar made a few statements while he was driving, Stella continued, “We want that kind of character from our drivers.” We ask them to make their position very clear, so we ask.

“Our review needs to be very detailed, very analytical, it needs to take into account the point of view of our two drivers, and then we will form a common opinion based on which we will see whether we can just confirm our initial interpretation or there’s something else that we should conclude.

We constantly remind ourselves, as a premise, that “This is hard” whenever we start talking with the drivers.

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 a foundational principle of the way we were racing at McLaren.

McLaren winning the constructors’ championship for the second year in a row was the focus of the controversy.

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

Their victory is one of the earliest times a team has done it. Even though it was a 22-race season, Red Bull still won with six races left in 2023, which is an improvement over Red Bull’s previous record of 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.

But the car has not had the superiority over the field shown by the winners in either of those years.

Verstappen won all but three of the races in 2023, with Red Bull taking the other three. McLaren had the best car, but it required two drivers to consistently win, while Sergio Perez suffered a bad fallout from his two early victories that year.

Piastri and Norris have won 12 of the 18 races so far, seven for Piastri and five for Norris. Russell won two and Verstappen four.

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.

McLaren’s title last year was won at the final race under severe pressure from Ferrari, and as this is the final year of the current regulations, the teams were expected to converge further.

McLaren, however, outsmarted them with their MCL39 car, which has proven superiority through devastating cornering speeds, particularly in medium-speed turns, which are the most common on the calendar and have the best tyre usage on the grid.

It struggles with heavy braking and traction, and it struggles with over bumps. But it is, as well as being arguably the most beautiful car on the grid with its elegant lines, especially seen from the side or rear three-quarters, also the most effective on average.

According to Stella, innovation was the key to this. Front and rear suspension designs have extreme levels of anti-lift and anti-dive to ensure a stable aerodynamic platform. In aerodynamics. And when it comes to cooling, the car has noticeably fewer and smaller vents than other vehicles, which is advantageous given how aerodynamically efficient each additional opening costs.

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.”

As the season nears its climax, McLaren’s advantage has diminished. 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.

That decision by McLaren was rooted in the fact that they were seeing diminishing returns in developing this car, common when a design has such an advantage at the start of a season, and that they wanted to ensure they were well prepared for next year, when new chassis and engine rules could turn F1 on its head.

However, Norris is aware of the magnitude of his team’s accomplishments and the remarkable turnaround Stella and chief executive officer Zak Brown made when they first started the 2023 campaign in 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 is a great thing”, Norris said. In a time when it is harder to do with more restrictions and less wind tunnel time, “if you look where we were three years ago, we have outperformed every team in terms of development.”

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. You’re always greeted with a smile. However, Oscar and I have done a lot of driving for us as a team, pushing each other and providing on weekends. You don’t see that in any other team.

“I’ve worked for McLaren ever since I first started.” The time and place were drastically different from what we are now.

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