How McLaren is reacting to Norris’ Canada F1 clash with Piastri

McLaren boss Andrea Stella has said the team may need to hold some “tough conversations” after its intra-squad collision at Formula 1’s Canadian Grand Prix – but vowed Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri will remain free to race.

McLaren’s first proper intra-team contact in the closing stages of Sunday’s Montreal race seemed to leave little room for interpretation. After a hair-raising side-by-side fight into the final chicane, in which Piastri came out on top with some deft late braking, it was Norris who was fully to blame for clumsily clattering into the back of his team-mate along the start-finish straight as they squabbled over fourth and potentially a chance to go after Andrea Kimi Antonelli for the remaining podium spot.

There were some parallels with McLaren’s eventful 2011 race, when Jenson Button had a similar accident with Lewis Hamilton, although at the time Button wedged himself into an existing but closing gap, while in this instance the gap was never even there for Norris to slot into as he misjudged the distance to the Australian.

In doing so Norris committed a cardinal sin – never hit your team-mate – but the silver lining is that the Briton ultimately only ruined his own race, with Piastri fortunate to escape damage to finish fourth. Still, there will be a lot to debrief at the Woking team and Stella has offered clues on how it will respond.

Full support for apologetic Norris

It was not surprising to see self-critical Norris immediately own up to his mistake rather than find excuses, and those actions will make McLaren’s post-event debrief a lot easier. There was clearly no malicious intent, just a race craft error, and because Norris shouldered the blame and apologised to Piastri and McLaren, Stella said the team would happily offer him “full support”.

“It’s up to us as a team to show our full support to Lando,” Stella said. “The situation would be different if Lando would have not taken responsibility and apologised. This is just a result of a miscalculation, a misjudgement from a racing point of view, which obviously should not happen, but at the same time is 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 he apologised immediately to the team. He came to apologise to me as team principal in order to apologise to the entire team.

“Lando will have to show his character to overcome this kind of episode, make sure that he only takes the learnings, he only takes what will make him a stronger driver, and dismisses anything which will be a little bit of residual.”

But tough conversations will be had

That doesn’t mean McLaren will just move onto Austria without further ado. Just like the team had conversations after last year’s Italian Grand Prix, where Piastri made a bold pass on Norris into the second chicane that also cost Norris a position to Charles Leclerc and thus presented a net loss for the team, it will sit down and reinforce those ‘papaya rules’ rather than tighten them.

The key element is the implication that being free to race requires leaving more margin for error than Piastri left in Italy, and now Norris in Canada as he made a move with a close to zero percent chance of succeeding when he still had four laps to find a way by on Montreal’s long straight. Errors of judgement are only human, but Norris shouldn’t have been in a position trying to wedge himself in between the pitwall and Piastri to begin with.

“In the coming days we will have to go into what is needed to make sure that when we go racing, we preserve the margins that are required,” Stella said. “We will have conversations, and the conversations may be even tough. But they will happen once we are all rested and calm, and we have the possibility to take all the learnings.

“Now that we are in the heat of the moment, for me the most important thing is to see a reaction where people take responsibility of their actions. And we have already seen it. And I talked to Oscar as well, and he sort of is cool with the situation, because Lando apologised, he knows that a misjudgement in racing can happen.”

Reinforcing papaya rules?

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-24, 1st position, Oscar Piastri, McLaren MCL38, 2nd position, Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38, 3rd position, on their slow down lap

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

But Stella added that just like there’s no doubt over the team’s commitment to Norris, there is also no chance of dramatically changing its rules of engagement, with the squad keen to “preserve our parity and equality between our two drivers”.

McLaren has been praised for letting its drivers race, which it feels is a core part of its ‘racing values’ and also integral to keeping two ‘number one drivers’ satisfied. And with Norris and Piastri likely disputing the drivers’ title amongst themselves, the papaya squad is keen not to get in their way if it’s not absolutely necessary or in the interest of the team.

“Being free to race is a value that we want to try and exercise and respect as much as we can, rather than every time that we have a proximity between the two cars, then having control from the pitwall,” Stella explained.

“We want to give Lando and Oscar opportunities to race, and opportunities to be at the end of the season in the position that they deserve to be in based on their merit and performance rather than realise that the points have been controlled more by the team than the quality of their driving.

“This is not necessarily a simple and straight exercise, but we want to try and do it as best as we can, so I don’t foresee that today’s episode will change our approach. If anything, it will reinforce that the principles we have require more caution by our drivers.

“If we say that there should be no contact between the two McLarens, we need to have the margins to make sure that we have no contact, even if in a DRS situation the car may get almost a little bit sucked onto the other car and cause this kind of misjudgement as to the distance.”

What will happen next time Norris and Piastri clash?

Lando Norris, McLaren

Photo by: James Sutton / Motorsport Images via Getty Images

Stella is under no illusion that his two title protagonists may well clash again in the future, as they are bound to fight over the same piece of real estate down the line. With 24 grands prix and six sprint races, it is statistically improbable Montreal was a one-off.

“There are so many races nowadays, and sprints, so there are more and more situations where we can have these kinds of episodes,” he said. “The two McLarens racing close to one another, it will happen again.

“But there will have to be better judgement in terms of the distance. Having experienced this kind of situation, I think it will make us more robust as a team.”

While upset at the contact, Stella said he “saw some wisdom” in how the two drivers went wheel-to-wheel at the chicane, which he felt was ultimately a bigger test of the respect they have for each other and the team rather than the honest mistake that followed. Senna versus Prost, or Alonso versus Hamilton, this is not.

“In effect it was just a matter of distance between the two cars, there’s nothing like one driver wanting to demonstrate something else,” he concluded. “If anything, the dangerous situation was more approaching the last chicane when they were side-by-side, and I saw some wisdom there.”

Fortunately for McLaren, it has two sensible drivers who have a good sense of responsibility and teamwork. But that hasn’t happened by accident. Being a team player has been a “non-negotiable” attribute McLaren demands from its drivers and is part of why it was so keen to extend both Norris’ and Piastri’s contracts in recent years.

McLaren will be hoping that approach will pay off as Norris and Piastri enter the next phase of their title fight.