Lando Norris was ‘held accountable’ for his opening-lap tussle with team-mate Oscar Piastri at the Singapore Grand Prix. The Brit bumped wheels with the Australian at Turn Three, overtaking him as a result and leaving his McLaren colleague furious behind the wheel.
During the race, Piastri demanded that he be let through past Norris, but McLaren deemed that the contact was a racing incident, as the Bristol-born racer was attempting to avoid significant contact with second-placed Max Verstappen when he hit his team-mate.
After the chequered flag, Piastri remained in a frustrated mood, and team principal Andrea Stella promised that the team would review the incident at the McLaren Technology Centre. Norris shared the outcome of the review ahead of this weekend’s United States Grand Prix.
“There were talks – that was inevitable,” Norris revealed. “The team held me accountable for what happened, which I think is fair, and then we made progress from there on understanding what the repercussions were for myself and to avoid something worse happening than it did.
“The last thing I want is something like that to happen to cause these kind of controversial talks after a race. And at the same time, I put just as much risk on me putting myself out of the race as I do whoever I’m racing against, whether it’s Oscar or anyone else.
“So it’s clearly something I want to avoid. It’s been one of my strengths since coming into Formula One, avoiding contact in general and keeping myself in the race.
“I think one thing we’ve always done well as a team is using and progressing with the framework that we have to allow both of us as drivers to trust each other and the team. That’s a lot of the reason for why we’re a stronger team than everyone else.”
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Norris went on to cite that the repercussions were “not positive”, but praised team principal Stella and CEO Zak Brown for cultivating an environment where drivers are held accountable for their on-track actions and directed towards fair wheel-to-wheel combat.
He continued: “I don’t know what’s happened to all the teams in the past and what Lewis [Hamilton] and [Nico] Rosberg had [at Mercedes], but Andrea’s number one priority is preserving the morale and the framework that we set out.
“I’ve been part of it for many years, but especially over the last couple of years since Andrea stepped into his position of being team principal, and how he wants to preserve the greatness of the team that we have at the minute.”