McLaren’s uneasy truce: Norris elbows through, Piastri left asking questions
Singapore lit the fuse. Lando Norris launched from fifth, bounced off Max Verstappen and then clattered across Oscar Piastri’s nose into Turn 1. No team orders, no swap, no penalty. Just two papayas hammering through the opening lap with one clear winner: Norris. And with that, Piastri’s championship cushion shrank to 22 points.
You can see why the Australian wasn’t thrilled. McLaren’s own “papaya rules” put don’t hit your teammate right at the top. Piastri’s view post‑race was polite but pointed: he called it “barge-y,” expected a look from the team, and left it there. The look never came.
Jolyon Palmer, watching the season’s most delicate title fight develop under McLaren’s roof, summed up the quiet frustration. In his words, when the calls have mattered, Piastri hasn’t landed on the good side often enough. He name‑checked a few sore spots: Silverstone, where Piastri took a penalty he felt was harsh and there was no switch back; Budapest, where Norris won after strategy tilted away from the lead McLaren; Monza, where Piastri was told to cede position; and now Singapore, where Norris muscled ahead and that was that. Add Norris’s Zandvoort DNF and scruffy pit stops to the ledger if you like, but the pattern that eats at a driver is the one that keeps costing him track position on Sundays.
And that’s the paranoia of a title fight. Even with a lead, you start seeing shadows. When the other car gets the rub of the green a few weekends in a row, it’s human to wonder if the garage prefers the incumbent poster boy. Is there favouritism? Or is it just the drip‑drip of marginal race moments blowing in one direction?
Rob Smedley, who’s been in the middle of this sort of thing at Ferrari and Williams, didn’t bother dressing it up. Try to micromanage “fairness” in real time and you only create more problems, he argued. Races are a chain reaction — a slow stop here, a flipped pit priority there — and the driver will always pick the one link that hurt them most as evidence. His take on Singapore was simple: once the lights go out, let them race. Norris showed the aggression you need in a title bid. It wasn’t pretty, but it was two drivers sorting it on the road. Intervening mid‑stream sets precedents that come back to bite you three years later.
That’s the knot McLaren’s tied itself in this year. The papaya rulebook wants parity and peace; the championship demands elbows and edge. Most teams discover, sooner or later, that you can’t spreadsheet your way through a two‑car title run. Hamilton‑Rosberg, Vettel‑Webber, even intra‑Red Bull flashpoints — the moment the stakes rise, “fairness” becomes whatever gets your car ahead.
None of this means McLaren are playing favourites. It does mean the optics are getting messy. Norris has been visibly punchier since the summer; Piastri has been cleaner, quieter, and — crucially — leading the standings. Each now has a highlight reel to wave in the debrief. Each has a list of grievances. And every weekend the list gets longer.
So what should McLaren do? Probably less. If you believe Smedley, and plenty in the paddock do, the smartest thing is to set broad rules before the race and then get out of the way. No dives on your teammate, no squeezing into walls, no contact by choice — beyond that, let the natural order stand. Because unless it’s a slam‑dunk team instruction to protect a tyre offset or avoid a double‑stack disaster, every intervention becomes an argument, and every argument becomes ammunition for the next time.
The awkward truth: McLaren might have to live with a few more lap‑one heart attacks and some frosty post‑race handshakes. The alternative is worse. Pick a side and you risk detonating the garage. Keep trying to referee every scuffle and you lose credibility with both.
For now, the scoreboard still says advantage Piastri. The mood music says the fight is only getting sharper. And after Singapore, one thing is clear — McLaren’s title hopes will be decided between the white lines, not in the briefing room.
