McLaren chief Zak Brown has shed some light on the “repercussions” Lando Norris is facing at the United States Grand Prix this weekend as a result of his contact with team-mate Oscar Piastri in Singapore. The two title rivals banged wheels on the opening lap of that race, leaving Piastri unimpressed as the Brit overtook.
The stewards saw nothing wrong with the incident and McLaren declined the Aussie’s request for them to swap positions, leading to Norris finishing ahead and taking another small bite out of Piastri’s championship lead. But he said ahead of this weekend’s action in Austin that he will suffer the “repercussions” of that incident.
“The team held me accountable for what happened, which I think is fair,” said Norris. “Then we made progress from there on understanding what the repercussions were for myself, to avoid anything happening worse than what did.”
Speaking after that Singapore race, chief executive Brown was keen to play down what happened and called it a “racing incident”. He repeated that claim as he was asked about it on the Sky Sports coverage during practice in Austin on Friday, but suggested Norris is indeed paying the price for causing that contact with his team-mate in the form of a “marginal” handicap.
The American said: “We review every race. Lando and Oscar had a bit of a touch there. The start of a Formula 1 race is pretty manic and it was clearly not intentional. But we don’t want our cars touching. We laid out how we want to go racing at the start of the year and so there is a little bit of a sporting repercussion in lieu of what happened.
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“We move forward, the drivers are comfortable and they are free to race. It’s marginal, it’s consistent with what happened which was a racing incident at the end of the day, at the start of a Grand Prix on a track which was somewhat damp. It wasn’t intentional. But [the handicap] is very marginal, it probably won’t be noticed.
“Lando and and Oscar know what it is, which is what’s most important. Of course, we want to be transparent with our fans. We’re doing it the hard way, trying to let both guys race for the championship. The easy way out would be to have a one-two as some teams do, but that’s not how McLaren want to go racing.”
Despite whatever handicap he is carrying, Norris was fastest in the first and only practice session on this Sprint weekend in Texas. Piastri was third on the timesheets, the two McLarens surprisingly split by the Sauber of Nico Hulkenberg who was the last to cross the line at the end of that hour of running and produced an eye-catching qualifying simulation result.
