Jenson Button would have admitted that Lando Norris ‘got the better’ of him and moved on, had he been in Oscar Piastri’s shoes at the Singapore Grand Prix. The Australian racer was furious with an opening-lap move from his team-mate, and his frustrations lingered long after the chequered flag dropped.
Piastri started the Grand Prix from third on the grid with his team-mate and title rival in fifth, but the Melbourne-born racer was staring at Norris’ rear wing heading into Turn Four after contact from the Brit on the inside at Turn Three.
On the radio, Piastri fumed: “That wasn’t very team-like, but sure. So we are cool with Lando just barging me out of the way?” He later described McLaren’s inaction as “not fair” and declared: “Yeah, but if he has to avoid another car (Max Verstappen) by crashing into his team-mate, then that is a pretty s*** job of avoiding.”
However, according to 2009 Formula One world champion Button, there was nothing wrong with Norris’ Turn One manoeuvre. “It’s racing,” he told Sky Sports F1, analysing the contact.
“He’s side by side. He had the little tap into the back of the Red Bull of Max. And he’s got a bit of oversteer, which is quite unusual. I think it just shows how low the grip was. He didn’t purposefully try to push him in the wall.
“It’s not like he drove him into the wall. It’s not like he drove all the way to the wall hoping that Oscar would hit the wall or disappear. It was halfway through the corner, he had a snap of oversteer. If I was Oscar, I would be like, ‘Ah, my team-mate got the better of me there!’ And that’s it.”
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Piastri was asked about the contact after the race, but refused to back down from his frustrated stance, although he also avoided escalating the situation without reviewing a replay of the clash.
The Australian is now only 22 points ahead of his team-mate heading into the final six rounds of the 2026 campaign. Norris has beaten Piastri in each of the last three Grands Prix, mounting a World Championship comeback after his heartbreaking mechanical DNF in Zandvoort.
Before the cars hit the track in Austin, McLaren face a lengthy internal review. “We have to put everything in perspective,” said team principal Andrea Stella. “It’s the comments from a driver in a Formula One car, there’s the heat of the moment. The information that is available is just his point of view. As usual, we will have a good conversation, build from there and come up stronger.”