McLaren’s race exploded into drama within seconds of lights out at Marina Bay for the Singapore Grand Prix. Replays showed Lando Norris tag the back of Max Verstappen under braking for Turn 3, before the Briton squeezed alongside team-mate Oscar Piastri and the pair banged wheels as the Briton came through. Norris appeared to pick up front-wing damage in the shuffle.
Piastri was furious on the radio moments later. “So are we cool with Lando just barging me out of the way or? What’s the go there?” he asked. The McLaren pit wall replied: “We’re looking at it. Let me get back to you.”
The stewards looked into the clash with them deciding on no further action due to Norris having to avoid Verstappen’s car. On hearing the news, Piastri slowly lost his cool.
“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,” the Australian’s race engineer Tom Stallard said.
“That’s not fair. I’m sorry, that’s not fair,” Piastri replied.
“If he has to avoid another car by crashing into his team-mate, then that’s a pretty **** job of avoiding.”
Sky Sports F1’s Martin Brundle warned that the relationship between the drivers and the rules that govern them may have just changed: “I think the ground rules between the two McLarens have just changed for the rest of the season.”
With both drivers fighting at the sharp end of the championship this season, this early contact sets an uneasy tone for McLaren’s evening in Singapore, where track position is notoriously hard-won and minor damage can snowball. We now turn to McLaren on how they look to manages its drivers.
