No snub, just noise: The real story behind Piastri, Zak Brown and those Singapore clips
Social media did its thing after the Singapore Grand Prix, slicing up a few seconds of parc ferme audio and a TV cutaway into a neat little narrative: Oscar Piastri blanked Zak Brown and then swerved McLaren’s title celebrations. It looked spicy. It wasn’t.
Here’s what actually went down.
Piastri’s night was already raw enough without the edits. He started ahead of Lando Norris but wound up chasing his teammate home after the pair came together on lap one when Norris jinked to avoid Max Verstappen. Norris took the podium; Piastri finished just behind. In the heat of it, the usually composed Aussie let the frustration breathe on the radio. Nothing remarkable in a title fight. Just human.
Then came parc ferme. Brown’s message over the team channel — congratulating Piastri as McLaren sealed back-to-back Constructors’ titles — cut off mid-sentence. On the clip doing the rounds, it played like a deliberate disconnect. Anyone who’s stood 10 metres from a car at Marina Bay while fireworks go off knows radios can be temperamental at best; what you heard was interference, not insubordination. Piastri was unclipping and climbing out after 62 laps in tropical soup, not playing politics.
The second “evidence” was a shot of Piastri in the media pen while McLaren’s stage celebration rolled on the screens behind him. Cue the “snub” captions. What the crop didn’t show: Norris wasn’t up there either at that moment. He was in the post-race press conference; Piastri was locked in live interviews. If you’ve ever tried to sync the TV show, parc ferme, cool-down room, press conference and an on-stage celebration in the same 15 minutes, good luck. Sometimes the timings just clash.
And when the dust settled, both drivers joined the party anyway — together, with the team that’s now the benchmark of 2025. McLaren’s own post said it best.
Respect 🤝
#McLaren
— McLaren (@McLarenF1)October 5, 2025
Piastri also dialed back the temperature afterward. He acknowledged there’ve been tough moments this season, admitted a few could’ve been handled better, and pointed to a team still learning together — with good intentions at the core. It’s not kumbaya, it’s grown-up racing inside a title fight that’s getting tight. That edge is exactly what you expect when both drivers are in the hunt.
Strip away the clips, and the story is straightforward. McLaren clinched the championship; Norris shaved a few more points off Piastri’s lead; the garage had to referee another awkward intra-team moment; the drivers did their media rounds and then celebrated together. No silent treatment. No civil war. Just the messy, noisy reality of a Sunday night in Singapore — and a championship battle that isn’t slowing down.
