Coulthard backs Piastri after Singapore flashpoint: “Fair has to be fair”
Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris gave McLaren a headache under the lights in Singapore, and David Coulthard thinks the Australian had every right to feel aggrieved.
Turn 3, lap one, Marina Bay. Norris darts to avoid Max Verstappen, clatters into Piastri, and McLaren’s afternoon immediately tilts on its axis. Norris carries on with a dinged front wing endplate and still bags third; Piastri follows him home, the gap between the two in the standings trimmed by three points. The radio told the rest of the story.
“Yeah, I mean that wasn’t very team like,” Piastri said over the airwaves. “So, are we cool with Lando just barging me out of the way?”
McLaren’s response was measured, if not exactly what he wanted to hear. Engineer Tom Stallard: “As a team, we see Lando had to avoid Verstappen, so we won’t take any action during the race. We can review further afterwards.”
Piastri, still simmering: “Mate, that’s not fair. I’m sorry, that’s not fair.”
From the commentary box, Coulthard nodded along. “You can understand, actually, why you’ve got Oscar going, ‘hold on a minute, I’ve just been barged wide by my teammate,’” he said on Channel 4. “He puts forward a compelling argument. No further words needed.”
The Scot’s point wasn’t so much about apportioning blame as it was about setting boundaries. McLaren have long championed their “papaya regulations” — race hard, race fair, don’t hit each other. Zak Brown boiled it down last season: “Race each other respectfully. Give each other enough room and don’t touch each other.” Piastri’s version was even simpler: one rule, don’t crash into each other.
That rule didn’t survive the squeeze into Turn 3.
“You can only start meddling to a certain degree, because at what point does it become unfair?” Coulthard added, before rolling the clock back to his own McLaren years. He remembered being asked to move for Mika Hakkinen — and not always feeling the scales were balanced. “When I moved over for Mika a couple of times, the return I got was he moves over from third, and when I was running in fourth, and I got a third place. I never got a win back. The sensitivity of a race driver is such that fair has to be fair.”
That last line lingers because it cuts to the core of McLaren’s 2025 tightrope. They’ve let Norris and Piastri off the leash this year, trusting two elite operators to sort it out without friendly fire. Most weekends, it makes for devastating speed and a clean garage. But when elbows tangle — especially on lap one — the team has to decide whether to step in or let it ride.
On Sunday, they let it ride.
From the pit wall, the argument is obvious: Norris took evasive action to avoid Verstappen. First-lap congestion is messy. Stewards often give drivers latitude to survive lap-one chaos. Inside the cockpit, the equation is simpler: I got hit by my teammate, and I lost out because of it. You don’t need telemetry to understand why that stung Piastri, particularly with a title picture that’s become personal between the two. The Australian finished behind the other car with the scuffed front wing, and lost three points from his lead. Those are the sorts of details drivers don’t forget.
To his credit, Piastri cooled quickly once he’d climbed out of the car. “I need to look more at the replays to know exactly what happened,” he told reporters. “The main thing is, the two cars coming together, it’s never what we want. So I’ll go and have a look at it in more detail, and come to my conclusion. I thought in the moment, you know, obviously, it’s the first lap, tensions are high… We’re obviously encouraged to share our views on what happened, and I did that, and I’m sure we’ll discuss.”
They will. And they’ll likely revisit the papaya rulebook while they’re at it. Because while “don’t crash into each other” is as clean as team rules get, the application lives in the grey. Did Norris have anywhere else to go? Did Piastri need to concede more room knowing Verstappen was a factor? Was there a point for the team to orchestrate a position swap later, given damage and pace?
None of those answers are straightforward, but the bigger message is. In a season this tight, clarity matters. Drivers can live with tough calls; they can’t live with feeling like the deck is stacked.
That’s what Coulthard was getting at. He wasn’t pushing team orders, just consistency. If you’re going to let them race, let them race — until they hit. And then you either reset the tone immediately, or you accept the fallout.
McLaren didn’t intervene on Sunday. Fine. But when “fair has to be fair” becomes the paddock’s refrain, it’s usually a sign that one of the fastest teams in Formula 1 has a more delicate job than finding pure lap time. They’ve got to keep two title-calibre drivers moving in the same direction, even when the apex squeezes and the halo fills with papaya.
