McLaren the champions but “not very team-like” says Piastri

Congratulations to McLaren, who won their 10th world constructors’ championship with six races to go, equalling the record for the earliest title conclusion. They have crushed their rivals with double the points of the second-placed team. It’s the first time they’ve won back-to-back constructors’ titles for 34 years.

But I suspect the celebrations tonight might be clouded by an incident between team-mates Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri at the start of the Singapore Grand Prix.

“Not very team like,” was the Australian’s immediate verdict on the collision that took place in Turn 3 on the opening lap, as Norris clattered front wheels with him, having made contact with Max Verstappen a second earlier.

“Are we cool with him barging me out the way? What’s the go?” Piastri asked his engineer. It was worth posing the question because, viewed from Piastri’s cockpit he was on the outside for the left hander when Norris suddenly lurched towards him and his right-front wheel slammed into Piastri’s left-front tyre.

The FIA stewards, led by former F1 driver Derek Warwick, looked at it but decided no further action was needed. This was communicated to Piastri, who opined that if Norris’s solution to avoid heavier contact with Verstappen was to collide with his own team-mate, then this was not very clever.

Piastri didn’t love McLaren’s decision in Monza to swap the order to his disadvantage after a pitstop issue for Norris. That cost him three points. Another three points swung Norris’ way today, but Piastri was even less impressed here and will feel that the rules of engagement have changed now for the rest of the season. This will be hard to manage and could lead to a collision in one of the final six races.

Observing the team in Singapore and with many years of experience of how the dynamics evolve within a team in a title fight at the business end of the season, one could feel the tension all weekend.

On one level McLaren is doing everything it can to maintain team harmony by letting the drivers race each other with their ‘papaya rules’. But it is virtually impossible with a world title at stake to keep things “nicey nicey” when the inevitable crunch moments, like this one, happen.

One driver has to lose, as Ayrton Senna once observed to McLaren team-mate Alain Prost in a famous joint press conference that has been clipped many times in F1 documentaries. Any perceived advantage given by a team to one of its drivers in that bearpit easily gets blown up.

Another problem with being on the wrong side of things today for Piastri was that he lost the right to priority on pitstops. As he came under pressure from behind from Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, the team asked Norris if he was happy for Piastri to pit first. His immediate reaction was “yes”, which he quickly changed to “no”. He stopped first.

Piastri was pitted a lap later and the left-rear wheel stuck, resulting in 5.2-second stop. He managed to get out ahead of Leclerc but had lost three seconds to the leaders, about his deficit to Norris at the flag.

Verstappen had opted for soft tyres for the start, aiming to have better grip off the line than the mediums on polesitter George Russell and he was also hoping for an early safety car. Both were sound bets, but neither paid off. Russell made a superb getaway and pulled a decent gap, controlling the race from there for his second victory of the season and one that underlines his claim for more generous terms in his long-delayed contract renewal.

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

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Images via Getty Images

There was nothing to be done for the Dutchman. This was exacerbated by a downshift problem in the first stint. He stopped first of the frontrunners, giving himself a much longer stint to the flag on the hard tyres than the McLaren pair and struggled several times with slowing his Red Bull for corners.

With his team-mate once again deep in the backmarkers fight, it was another example of Verstappen’s virtuosity at delivering results in a difficult car. “The rear is like a handbrake, please help!” Verstappen radioed with 20 laps to go, as Norris closed in. But he held on.

At some point before the papaya celebrations really kick off tonight there will be a tense debrief between the drivers and management. It will be fascinating to see what messaging comes out of it. This feels like a bridge crossed in driver relations. It was a racing incident in the eyes of both the stewards and McLaren management, but the drivers may now view things differently.

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– The Autosport.com Team