How McLaren will deal with driver tensions after F1 Singapore GP clash

“I think the first-lap situation is one of those that can happen with this close racing,” was McLaren team principal Andrea Stella’s post-race take on the incident between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri which defined the Singapore Grand Prix.

“We will review the situation together with our drivers, we will have the good conversations like we had, for instance, after Canada [where Norris collided with Piastri and took himself out of the race] and this review gave us the opportunity after Canada to come back, we said at the time, even more united and stronger as a team.

“We will see if there’s any learning and anything that we need to fine tune in terms of our approach, but, yeah, I think this will just lead to some good conversations.”

This conjures a mental image of everyone sitting around the camp fire smoking the peace pipe and holding hands, which would be delightful if it were actually the case. But while Stella was outlining his harmonious peace-and-love manifesto into the array of digital voice recorders set before him, footage was circulating on social media purporting to show Piastri unplugging his radio while Stella’s ultimate boss, Zak Brown, was trying to congratulate him on a job well done.

Generally speaking, you don’t treat your boss’s boss like someone phoning to inform you that a $4000 Amazon charge has appeared on your credit card. These conversations are going to be challenging.

Clearly, from the perspective of the cockpit, drivers have a different view of what is happening around them, so their initial reactions are often based on not having the full facts. McLaren’s position is that it encourages its drivers to express their opinions in such situations.

“Obviously, 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,” said Stella. “They have to make their position very clear, that’s what we ask them.

“At the same time, we have to put things in perspective – the perspective of a driver that is in a Formula 1 car with the intensity of it being the first lap, and the perspective that obviously just saw Lando moving onto him, but we know that Lando in reality had a contact with Verstappen and oversteered into Oscar.

“We will have good reviews, good conversations and like after Canada, we’ll come back stronger and even more united.”

This is fair enough, even if it makes the reviews seem as happy-clappy as an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, but the events of the Italian Grand Prix seemed to set a precedent in which perceived injustices are managed from above straight away, rather than being parked until a meeting room becomes available in which everyone can hold hands and begin to access their strong centre. In Monza, Norris happily agreed to let Piastri pit first to head off the perceived threat from Charles Leclerc, only to end up behind his team-mate when his own pitstop was delayed. 

McLaren resolved that during the race by ordering the drivers to swap positions again. The tenor of Piastri’s radio messages during the opening laps of Singapore – “So are we cool with Lando just barging me out of the way?” – suggests he was angling for some sort of restorative justice from above.

He didn’t get it from the stewards and he didn’t get it from the pitwall.

Oscar Piastri, McLaren, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, George Russell, Mercedes

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Images via Getty Images

Autosport therefore asked Stella if Monza had set a precedent whereby drivers expect the “hand of God” to intervene immediately to restore the fairness and harmony demanded by the papaya rules.

“It’s within the power and the rights of the team to act should there be the case, so there’s been an assessment at the pitwall,” he said. “We thought that there was no need to do so. But like I said before, we do want, we do ask our drivers to make their position very clear and that’s what Oscar did.

“Then we made our assessment and we thought that the right course of action is the one that we took. But part of the process is the review that will happen in the coming days and, like I said before, surely this will lead to an even more united and stronger team.”

The upshot, then, to paraphrase Elvis Presley, is a little more conversation and a little less action. Piastri’s belief was that he was displaced by an unnecessarily physical move and he will want to know why the pitwall didn’t intervene to reverse their positions.

It may be that the additional perspective granted by seeing the opening few corners from all angles may salve some of the angst. Or it may not – because racing drivers are fundamentally competitive individuals and McLaren is walking a proverbial tightrope in trying to ensure fairness and equality between Norris and Piastri.

“Every time we start our conversations with the drivers we always remind ourselves, as a premise, this is hard,” said Stella.

Lando Norris, McLaren

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images

“Because this is the only matter in which when you race together as a team, actually you can’t have exactly the same interest for the two drivers because they want to pursue their aspiration. And this is a foundational principle of the way we go racing at McLaren, we want to protect this ‘let them race’ concept.

“We know that as soon as you adopt this concept you face difficulties… you need to be thorough and you need to have integrity in approaching that.

“I’m very proud of the way Lando and Oscar have been part of the process so far because if we have been able to navigate through this, let’s say, difficult part of going racing, it’s because we have Lando and Oscar on board.

“They’ve been just great individuals, great contributors, and that’s why it’s been successful so far, and definitely we will work hard to make this true for the remainder of the season and the years ahead, in which we will keep going racing with Lando and Oscar.”

The challenge Stella faces is to maintain trust. Way back in the annals of McLaren history there was the famous spat between Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost. While the preconditions for their falling-out had been brewing for some time, it was an argument over a supposed pre-race agreement in the 1989 San Marino Grand Prix about driving etiquette on the opening lap which rendered the schism irreconcilable.

Does this sound familiar?

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– The Autosport.com Team