Brundle says Norris’ Singapore gamble could reshape McLaren — and it might be time to let them fight
In the end, it took one wet patch and one very brave lunge to yank the lid off McLaren’s carefully managed harmony.
Lando Norris’ dash from fifth to third into Turn 1 at a damp, twitchy Marina Bay was the sort of punchy, instinctive move that wins a driver both positions and respect. It also earned him a tap with Max Verstappen’s Red Bull and a ricochet off the side of Oscar Piastri’s sister McLaren — and that last bit is where the story really begins.
The stewards weren’t bothered, and play moved on. Piastri, having narrowly avoided the wall and a very early flight home, was rather more interested. He radioed for the team to look at what happened; McLaren parked the discussion until the debrief. No in-race team orders. No instant dressing-down. Just two very fast drivers left to get on with it.
Martin Brundle, watching it all for Sky Sports F1, didn’t hide his admiration for the audacity. “It was opportunistic and quite brilliant from him,” he wrote of Norris’ start, noting the chain reaction that followed on the slick surface. And yet the former F1 driver believes that fleeting flash of carbon fiber-on-carbon fiber was bigger than a lap-one scuffle. “I have no doubt whatsoever that the dynamics between the two McLaren drivers will irrevocably change going forward,” he said. “It was just a matter of time.”
You didn’t need to be on the McLaren pit wall to feel the temperature rise. Norris saw a hole and filled it; Piastri saw a team-mate come back at him with elbows out. That’s how intra-team detente frays. It’s also how title-deciding protagonists are forged — especially when the car is good enough to put both of them in the fight every Sunday.
This is the tension that defines high-performing outfits. Modern McLaren has built up a reputation for clarity and control, for getting both cars to the flag and hoarding points with ruthless efficiency. It’s why they’ve been the benchmark this year. But at some point, clarity meets ambition, and only one driver gets to plant his name on the top step most often.
Brundle’s take? Lean into it. “Perhaps McLaren should now just let their two drivers duke it out, gloves off, between themselves with zero interference,” he suggested, before listing the natural guardrails that stop such a policy from turning nuclear: the need to finish, to avoid penalties, to keep Verstappen from mugging them both, and to preserve scarce new-spec parts with 2026 looming.
There’s a realism to that. Team orders can keep the peace, but they also breed resentment if one driver feels he’s been made second. Let Norris and Piastri settle it themselves, and you reward merit in the moment — while accepting the occasional tyre mark on a sidepod and a few spicy radio messages.
The counter-argument is obvious: title campaigns die by a thousand small cuts. A broken front wing here, a puncture there, a Safety Car lost to impetuousness — these are the margins that swing championships. Even if the stewards look the other way on lap one, the cost can show up later in the race, or later in the season.
McLaren, for its part, has signalled an internal review of the Singapore flashpoint. That’s standard. You wouldn’t expect anything less with two proven winners in identical machinery and a constructors’ campaign to protect. What will be interesting is where they set the line heading into Austin. No-contact policy? Situational team orders? Or a public show of trust and a private warning that any repeat ends in sanctions?
What’s undeniable is the direction of travel. Norris and Piastri have spent two seasons pushing each other into a higher orbit, and the balance of power between them has never felt static. Both have the pace. Both have the razor’s edge in wheel-to-wheel combat. Singapore’s Turn 1 just stripped away some of the careful varnish that’s coated the partnership.
And that might not be a bad thing. This is why we watch. Two elite drivers, one quick car, a championship picture that narrows with every race. Let them race, yes — but if you’re McLaren, you’d better have the spare front wings racked and the debrief room soundproofed.
