Piastri says McLaren put Norris at fault for Singapore lap-one brush: ‘Not how we go racing’
Oscar Piastri has revealed McLaren deemed Lando Norris responsible for their lap-one tangle in Singapore, drawing a line under a flashpoint that briefly threatened to spill into the title fight inside Woking’s own garage.
The incident came at Turn 3 on the opening lap at Marina Bay, when Norris nudged the sister car as the pair jostled for position. Piastri lost ground in the shuffle and was left staring at a long evening of containment rather than attack. McLaren didn’t intervene over team radio at the time, a call that clearly rankled the Australian in the moment, but the debrief later was frank — and decisive.
“We had a lot of discussions, as you’d expect, and very productive,” Piastri told media in Austin. “We’re very clear on how we want to go racing as a team, and that includes going forward, and the incident we had in Singapore isn’t how we want to go racing. Lando has taken responsibility for that and so have the team.”
Piastri ultimately recovered to fourth in Singapore as Norris climbed to the podium, but the pair’s first-corner friction felt like a breach of McLaren’s hard-and-fair mantra that’s underpinned the team’s resurgence. The tone since has been contrite rather than combative.
“In a live situation, it’s very, very difficult to analyse that,” Piastri added when asked why there was no in-race redress. “Whether swapping would have been the right thing to do is very tough. We’ve talked it through out of the heat of the moment with more data. Ultimately the responsibility has been put on Lando after the race.”
Norris, for his part, didn’t duck it when he faced the press in Texas.
“The team held me accountable for what happened, which I think is fair,” he said. “This is the last thing I want — to cause these kinds of controversial talks after a race. I put just as much risk on myself as whoever I’m racing against, whether it’s Oscar or anyone else. So it’s clearly something I want to avoid.”
That acknowledgment matters. McLaren has worked hard to keep its drivers free to race without tumbling into intra-team chaos. Singapore was a wobble, not a rupture. Both cars were undamaged, both scored big, and the team left with more points and a clear internal reset.
If it felt familiar, that’s because Monza offered a softer version of the same headache. A slow stop for Piastri flipped the running order there, and he was asked to let Norris by in the interests of strategy. He complied and brought home a podium. No fireworks then, no firestorm now — just the occasional bruise that comes with racing two drivers operating at the sharp end.
Crucially, Piastri pushed back on any idea of bias.
“I don’t think you can really say what would have been fair to do in the race,” he said of Singapore. “But we’ve discussed it. The team understands it. Lando’s taken responsibility. We’re aligned on how we go racing.”
So, where does that leave McLaren heading into Austin? With one uncomfortable conversation had and a championship fight still very much alive. The Norris–Piastri dynamic has been a strength: two young heavy-hitters extracting the kind of consistency every title bid needs. The line they walk is thin — let them race, but don’t let them torpedo the bigger picture. Singapore nudged that line. The response suggests the guardrails are still intact.
As for the broader title picture, this was the sort of weekend where small margins matter. George Russell won, Max Verstappen split the McLarens, and the calculus at the top tightened. Nobody is throwing elbows publicly — not in papaya, anyway — but nobody’s easing off, either. And that’s the trick now: keep the elbows in while keeping the pace up.
Austin’s Circuit of the Americas, with its big stops, changeable winds and endless temptation into Turn 1, will test that commitment in the best and worst ways. Expect McLaren to be crystal clear on lap-one priorities. Expect both drivers to have learned from Marina Bay. And expect neither to back down once the braking boards start flying past.
McLaren’s resurgence has been built on culture every bit as much as car. Singapore wasn’t pretty, but it was handled. In a season that will almost certainly be decided by details, that might be the most important takeaway of all.
