Lando Norris delivered an uncompromising riposte to the complaints of his angry McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri after the pair clashed at the Singapore Grand Prix, declaring that anyone who would not attempt a similar overtake “should not be in Formula One”.
The race at the Marina Bay circuit was won for Mercedes by George Russell but was marked by the incident in the opening corners, where Norris attacked Piastri and banged into his teammate in doing so after he had clipped the Red Bull of Max Verstappen in front.
“Anyone on the grid would have done exactly the same thing as I did, so if you fault me for just going on the inside of a big gap then you should not be in Formula One,” he said. “There was nothing wrong with what I did.”
Norris and Piastri are in a head-to-head fight for the drivers’ world championship, with McLaren having secured the constructors’ championship in Singapore. The pair finished third and fourth as Norris narrowed the gap on his title rival to 22 points with six meetings remaining.
Piastri was furious at the time, decrying it as unfair that the team would not intervene to have Norris return the place because he believed he had barged him out of the way. However, the stewards took no action.
“I misjudged a little bit how close I was to Max, but that is racing and I would have ended up ahead of Oscar anyway. I was on the inside and the last thing I want to do is to make contact with my teammate,” said Norris. “With the [championship] position I am in, I cannot afford to do that compared to him. The FIA thought it was fine and the team did so too.”
Piastri said he would reserve judgment until the team held a debriefing. “I need to look more at the replays and in more detail and come to my conclusion then,” he said. “It is the first lap, tensions are high and we are encouraged to share our views on what happened. I did that and we will discuss it moving forward.”
The McLaren team principal, Andrea Stella, also maintained the team would take under consideration their approach to managing their drivers. “We have to put everything in perspective. It’s the comments from a driver in a Formula One car, there’s the heat of the moment. The information that is available is just his point of view. As usual we will have a good conversation, build from there and come up stronger.”
