McLaren’s ‘let them race’ line gets its first bruise in Singapore — and Hamilton’s penalty row rumbles on
The viral clips made it look like Oscar Piastri had gone full ice-cold on Zak Brown in parc fermé, then swerved McLaren’s title party for good measure. The reality? Far less dramatic. Piastri didn’t deliberately blank his boss, and he didn’t intentionally duck the early celebrations as McLaren wrapped up the Constructors’ Championship in Singapore. Sometimes a snippet tells a neat story — just not the true one.
The real flashpoint was on track, not on social feeds. The opening lap at Marina Bay was messy by anyone’s standards: Lando Norris bounced off Max Verstappen and clashed wheels with Piastri through Turn 3. All three survived, but the teammate-on-teammate contact reshuffled the orange order, with Norris emerging ahead and racing on to third. Piastri was not in a forgiving mood.
“I think he did a pretty **** job at avoiding me,” he said, pointedly unimpressed with both the contact and the lack of a swap back once Norris cleared the chaos and pressed on.
The stewards took no further action, which raised eyebrows elsewhere. Anthony Davidson felt at minimum it warranted a black-and-white warning for Norris. Whether you agreed or not, it fed a broader question: what happens to McLaren’s no-handcuffs policy when both drivers are in the title conversation?
Andrea Stella’s answer is to keep the faith. The team boss has promised an internal review of the Norris–Piastri brush, but doubled down on the “let them race” ethos that’s defined McLaren’s climb back to the top. It’s the right instinct for a squad that trusts its drivers and relishes the edge. It’s also the approach most likely to generate more of this exact drama.
Here’s the rub. Norris said before the weekend he expected “small leniency” between teammates once the Constructors’ was sewn up. He wasn’t wrong — he just got there early. The lap-one nudge came before the title was technically secured, and it will be interesting to see whether Stella’s tolerance stretches as deep into wheel-to-wheel as Singapore’s did, now that the big trophy is already in the cabinet.
If you want to know how razor-thin the margins were at the start, the data only complicated the picture. Verstappen was said to have braked earlier than Norris in the concertina that kicked it all off, and from there it takes only one car half a wheel-width off-line to set off a chain. We’ve seen Turn 3 do worse.
Away from the papaya psychodrama, the other controversy of the night wore red. Lewis Hamilton, wrestling a brake issue in the final laps, repeatedly ran afoul of track limits and earned a black-and-white flag before the stewards hit him with a five-second penalty. Ferrari rolled the dice on a two-stop and bolted softs on lap 46 of 62; Hamilton hauled, then bled time as the braking gremlins bit. He finished seventh on the road but dropped to eighth behind Fernando Alonso once the sanction landed.
Post-race, the FIA’s stance was clear: a brake problem isn’t a justifiable reason to break the white lines. It sounds harsh until you consider the precedent. If mechanical issues become a free pass, policing track limits dissolves into intent and excuses. Still, plenty thought the punishment too light given the number of violations. Jenson Button, never shy with an opinion, said he was “amazed” Hamilton only copped five seconds after reportedly missing around ten braking zones in the run-in.
That argument sits in a grey area stewards will keep revisiting. Track limits aren’t glamorous, but they’re the backbone of wheel-to-wheel trust. And when championships are on the line — drivers’, teams’, or both — consistency matters more than ever.
Back to McLaren, because everything circles back to Woking right now. Title in hand, the team’s next job might be harder: keeping two fast, ambitious drivers happy as the stakes climb. Piastri’s not a rookie anymore, Norris is not shy about throwing elbows, and both have the pace to decide Sundays. The post-race optics were more unfortunate than mutinous, but the competitive tension is real. Brown’s big-tent culture and Stella’s calm ruthlessness have carried McLaren to the summit. Now comes leadership in its purest form: setting lines in private that keep Sundays free enough to win, but not so free they blow up a constructors’ lead they’ve already earned.
Singapore won’t be the last time we see Norris and Piastri argue over real estate. The key is how McLaren channels it. Let them race? Absolutely. Let them collide? Only once.
As for Hamilton, Ferrari will want answers from brake suppliers and from their strategy slide rule. The pace was there in bursts; the execution, not quite. It’s a long season, and Marina Bay often exposes the weak joints in a car and a weekend. This one did both.
In the end, Singapore gave us a snapshot of 2025’s pecking order and pressure points. McLaren are the benchmark with bite. Red Bull are still spicy in the skirmishes. Ferrari and Hamilton are quick enough to matter, but fragile enough to frustrate. And the stewards, as ever, are stuck in the crossfire.
File this one under growing pains for champions and contenders alike — and circle the next time Norris and Piastri arrive side-by-side into a 90-degree left. The only guarantee is you won’t want to blink.
