Let Them Fight: Piastri Torpedoes 'Team Lando' Conspiracy

Piastri shrugs off ‘Team Lando’ whispers as McLaren draw a line under Singapore

Oscar Piastri isn’t buying the conspiracies. Not the ones about McLaren leaning toward Lando Norris, not the idea of invisible team orders, not the notion that this title fight needs an England vs Australia undertone. After a bruising Singapore opener where Norris lunged into his teammate and came away with the better result, Piastri says the internal verdict was clear — and crucially, fair.

“We went through it, responsibility was placed on Lando,” Piastri told media in Austin. “I’m very happy there’s no favouritism or bias.” That’s the key line from the man leading the championship, and the one McLaren wanted out in the open after a week of finger-pointing.

The clash happened the way these things always do around Marina Bay: tight lines, cold tyres, one driver half a car width more optimistic than the other. Norris owned it afterwards. The team “held me accountable,” he said, with unspecified “repercussions.” Nobody will say what that meant — a fine, an internal mark, a painful debrief — but the point landed. McLaren’s long-standing papaya rulebook has Rule One underlined twice: don’t hit your teammate.

That, more than any breathless online theory, is what matters heading into the United States Grand Prix sprint weekend. McLaren left Singapore with the Constructors’ Championship already boxed off and six races to let their drivers settle the drivers’ title between themselves. Piastri leads Norris by 22 points, with 33 on the table in Austin alone. Max Verstappen, never shy of a late-season charge, is back within range too — 63 off Piastri, 41 behind Norris — after chipping away over the past three rounds.

If McLaren were going to tilt the table, this would be the moment. Piastri isn’t having it. “Every driver wants a fair shot to win a championship,” he said. “It’s more than fair to let us both fight.” For a team that’s spent two years assembling arguably the sharpest operation on the grid, it’s also the path of least resistance: keep both drivers locked in, give them even tools, manage the heat.

And there is heat. The nationality subplot is irresistible for fans: Melbourne’s hard-nosed metronome versus Bristol’s streetfighter, a neat Ashes-flavoured narrative dressed up in Pirelli rubber. Piastri doesn’t see it. “The nationality doesn’t really make a difference,” he shrugged. “As an Aussie and Englishman there’s always rivalry in sport… but for me, it doesn’t matter who I’m racing, I’m trying to beat everyone.”

Internally, the message is simple enough to fit on the visor strip: attack, but leave space for the other papaya. The Singapore flashpoint was exactly the sort of first-lap lunge that spirals into season-defining regret. COTA’s Turn 1, with its blind crest and elastic braking points, is not known for mercy either. Expect a little more margin than usual if the two orange cars arrive together.

The curiosity is how McLaren manage the fringes — out-lap priority, pit windows, undercuts that look like ambushes — when both cars are in the same fight, same strategy window, same piece of track. It’s the sort of thing that can feel like favouritism from the grandstands and still be entirely procedural inside the garage. That’s where trust matters. Singapore stung; Austin is the chance to prove the reset worked.

What’s certain is that the sport needed this. Two teammates, one team already champions, and a drivers’ title rolling toward a proper head-to-head. Piastri’s calm has been his trademark all year. Norris has been the more combustible, and also the more ruthless in wheel-to-wheel fights. Add a sprint to spice Saturday, and you’ve got the recipe for a nervy, compelling weekend.

McLaren will offer them rope. They just won’t let them tie the season in knots.