McLaren will continue to let Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris race freely despite their collision in the Canadian Grand Prix, although say the incident reinforced that the team-mates must apply more “caution” when in close combat.
Norris hit the back of Piastri’s car as the title-challenging pair battled over fourth place in the closing laps of the last race in Montreal, with the Briton largely taking much of the sting out of the incident by immediately accepting blame for the incident and apologising to Piastri and the team.
Team principal Andrea Stella said after the race that while there would be “tough” conversations back at their factory before this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix, he stressed the incident would not have any impact on the way they go racing and the ‘papaya rules’ the drivers have agreed to abide by.
Stella said: “The being free to race and the being clear as to how we go racing is a value of racing and is a value of racing that we want to try and exercise and respect as much as we can, rather than every time that we have a proximity between the two cars, then having control from the pit wall.
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Watch from Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri’s 360-degree onboard camera as Norris crashed into his McLaren team-mate during the Canada Grand Prix.
“I think like that, racing may soon become a bit of an artefact. And we want to give Lando and Oscar opportunities to race and opportunities to be at the end of the season in the position that they deserve to be in based on their merit, based on their performance, based on the racing quality that they have expressed through the season, rather than being at the end of the season and realise that the points have been controlled more by the team rather than the quality of their driving.
“This is not necessarily a simple and straight exercise but we want to try and do it as best as we can.”
Stella added: “I don’t foresee that [Canada’s] episode will change our approach from this point of view. If anything, it will reinforce and it will strengthen that the principles we have require more caution by our drivers.
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Martin Brundle believes Lando Norris still has a great chance to win the World Drivers Championship, but must perform every weekend.
“Because if we say that there should be no contact between the two McLarens, we need to have the margins to make sure that we have no contact, even if in a DRS situation the car may get almost a little bit sucked onto the other car and cause this kind of misjudgement as to the distance.”
‘There will have to be better judgement’
With McLaren’s dominance of this year’s world championship battles meaning Piastri and Norris have regularly run at the front of the field in the season’s opening 10 rounds, the team’s bosses had said for several months that they anticipated the pair would have some kind of clash sooner or later.
But with the first such incident now having happened, Stell believes McLaren’s “strong culture” will allow both the team and two drivers to emerge stronger from the events of Canada..
“In every situation in the heat of the moment that looks like the worst disaster ever but in reality the strength of being racers, the strength that comes from having a strong culture is the fact that you will process the episodes, you will review, you will take all the positive learning and you will dismiss anything that doesn’t have to come with us into the way we go racing in the future.
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A side-by-side look at how Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri’s clash at the Canadian GP compares to a very similar incident between Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button at the same race in 2011.
“This is the mindset that we all have at McLaren and I think this has been proven by the way Lando handled the situation and definitely that’s going to be the kind of conversation that we will not only have with our drivers but this is the kind of conversations that we will have with the entire team.
“We lean on our culture which is very strong and we use these episodes once they are a little chilled and our mind is colder than it is in the heat of the moment, to become a stronger team with two stronger drivers.”
Accepting that similar wheel-to-wheel battles will happen again, Stella said “Having experienced this kind of situation I think it will make us just more robust as a team and in terms of each of our two drivers against these situations, because the two McLarens racing close to one another will happen again, but there will have to be better judgement in terms of the distance.”
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The McLaren team react to Lando Norris’ crash when trying to overtake teammate Oscar Piastri at the Canada GP.
Norris’ failure to finish in Canada means he has dropped 22 points back on leader Piastri in the Drivers’ Championship heading into the forthcoming Austria-Britain double header. And while they finished off the podium for the first time this season last time out, McLaren retain a commanding lead in the Constructors’ Championship – 175 points clear of Mercedes.
Sky Sports F1’s Austrian GP schedule
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Look back at some of the most dramatic moments throughout the years at the Austrian Grand Prix.
Thursday June 26
2pm: Drivers’ Press Conference
Friday June 27
8.50am: F3 Practice
10am: F2 Practice
12pm: Austrian GP Practice One (session starts at 12.30pm)*
1.55pm: F3 Qualifying*
2.50pm: F2 Qualifying*
3.35pm: Austrian GP Practice Two (session starts at 4pm)*
5.15pm: The F1 Show*
Saturday June 28
9am: F3 Sprint
11.15pm: Austrian GP Practice Three (session starts at 11.30am)
1.10pm: F2 Sprint
2.15pm: Austrian GP Qualifying build-up*
3pm: AUSTRIAN GP QUALIFYING*
5pm: Ted’s Qualifying Notebook
Sunday June 29
7.25am: F3 Feature Race
8.55am: F2 Feature Race
10.40am: Porsche Supercup
12.30pm: Grand Prix Sunday: Austrian GP build-up*
2pm: THE AUSTRIAN GRAND PRIX*
4pm: Chequered Flag: Austrian GP reaction*
5pm: Ted’s Notebook
*also on Sky Sports Main Event
Next up for the 2025 Formula 1 season is a return to Europe for the Austrian Grand Prix, which is live on Sky Sports F1 this weekend. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime.
