Norris and Piastri F1 clash was only a matter of time

“Yes, we said a few times that it wasn’t a matter of ‘if’ there was going to be contact between Oscar and Lando but ‘when’ and we now know the answer to that one: Canada 2025.” They were the words of McLaren team principal Andrea Stella after Norris, in attempting to pass team-mate Piastri on the pitstraight in the late stages of the race, hit him instead, forcing Norris’s retirement with broken suspension. It replicated the McLaren team incident at the same place between Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton 14 years earlier, inset, with Norris trying to pass on the left just as Piastri was already moving that way to take up his line for the kink before the first turn. Although Piastri’s left-rear wheel took a hit from the front-right of the other car, he had no damage and was able to continue to the finish.

“It was the result of a racing misjudgement on Lando’s part, a miscalculation that just happened to be with his team-mate but which could have been with anyone. Obviously we never want to see two McLarens colliding but at the same time it is a part of racing and we did appreciate the fact that Lando immediately owned the situation. He raised his hand, he took responsibility for the accident and apologised immediately to the team. He came to apologise to me, as team principal, in order to apologise to the entire team.

“It’s important the way we respond and we react to these situations, which ultimately will be a very important learning point. I don’t think it’s a learning from a theoretical point of view, because the principal was already there, but it’s a learning in terms of experiencing how painful these situations can be. And this will only make us stronger in terms of our internal competition. And in terms of the way we go racing.”

Piastri was quite sanguine about the situation. “My discussion with Lando afterwards was fine,” he said. “Half of it was on the way to the stewards’ room, so that was fun. All good. We spoke about it honestly before we even got back to the team. Lando put his hands up and apologised… we’re still free to race, still fighting for a championship each. So we just keep going racing and make sure that we don’t come into contact again.”

“It’s up to us as a team to show our full support to Lando,” concluded Stella. “We will have conversations, and the conversations may be even tough, but there’s no doubt over the support we give to Lando and over the fact that we will preserve our parity and equality in terms of how we go racing at McLaren between our two drivers. The situation would be different if Lando would have not taken responsibility and apologised.”