Australian F1 star Oscar Piastri paused when asked if he and teammate Lando Norris race clean.
Finally, the answer came from the famously measured 24-year-old Melburnian, “Yes”, but it was hardly convincing.
A couple of hours prior in the Singapore Grand Prix, he was livid. Norris made contact with him at turn three of the opening lap as part of an overtake that ultimately led to the Brit finishing on the podium and eating into Piastri’s championship lead.
Oscar Piastri had another frustrating day behind the wheel of his McLaren, but he still maintains a handy championship lead.Credit: Getty Images
That now sits at just 22 points with six rounds of the 2025 season to come.
Piastri, just after the contact between the pair, had a pointed question for his McLaren team: “So are we cool with Lando just barging me out of the way or…? What’s the go there?” he said over his car’s radio.
“That’s not fair. That’s not fair.
“If he has to avoid another car by crashing into his teammate, then that’s a pretty **** job of avoiding.”
Those final six races to come will make for the kind of storylines Netflix could only dream of for Drive to Survive.
This result wasn’t disastrous to Piastri’s title hopes – he still leads the drivers’ standings after finishing fourth, just over two seconds behind Norris in third – but the gap is shrinking with the Brit riding a wave of momentum ahead of the season’s crescendo.
“Papaya rules” are never far from focus in each passing race, as McLaren have famously instructed Piastri and Norris to race head-to-head, as long as they race clean and don’t take each other out.
But at Marina Bay, that very nearly happened.
Over the next 60-plus laps after the contact was made, the battle between Piastri and his teammate stole all the focus off eventual winner George Russell.
Australians are all too familiar with what can happen in Formula 1 team politics. Mark Webber was on the wrong side of it in his bitter battles with Red Bull teammate Sebastian Vettel, and now the spotlight is on his protégé Oscar Piastri’s stance within McLaren. Does the British team really have two No.1 drivers?
Norris later described the opening-lap drama as “good racing”.
“It was slippery – it was still wet in a lot of places, but it’s racing,” he said. “I put it on the inside, I had a small correction, but [it’s] nothing more than that.”
At one stage during the race, Norris was asked over team radio if he’d be prepared to cede the first McLaren pit stop to Piastri, given it would have helped the Australian cover off Charles Leclerc behind him. Norris’ answer was emphatic.
“Yep… no, I wouldn’t,” he said.
McLaren chief Zak Brown and team principal Andrea Stella made no apologies for their “papaya rules” stance – where Piastri and Norris are free to race head-to-head, as long as they don’t take each other out of the race or hurt each other’s chances.
And with the constructors’ title now sewn up – McLaren storming to a massively one-sided win – it’s still the case.
“The two drivers were already in condition to race and pursue their aspirations,” Stella said.
“We will stay in continuity with this approach. Every race, we learn a little bit, [and] finetune, but it’s a matter of details. There will be continuity with what’s the pursuit of the drivers’ championship. It doesn’t change the approach having won the constructors’ championship.”
Speaking on the Sky coverage, 2009 world champion Jenson Button said Norris’ move, in which he made contact with both Piastri and Max Verstappen (who finished second) was fair.
“He [Norris] had a 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 purposely try to push [Piastri] in the wall.
“It’s not like he drove all the way to the wall hoping that Oscar would either 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 teammate got the better of me there!’ and that’s it.”
The race stewards cleared it as a first-lap racing incident, but Sky analyst and former F1 racer Anthony Davidson said it was Norris’ fault.
“Piastri’s very lucky that he didn’t end up in the barrier,” he said.
“It wasn’t malicious at all from Lando – it was audacious, it was brave, I’m glad he made that move.
“Was it more his fault? Yes, it was – he made two points of contact, the back of the Red Bull and his teammate, so the cause of contact is Lando Norris, but they’re racing each other. The problem with this [tight and twisting] circuit is, as we saw, you can’t overtake.”
Speaking after the race, Piastri’s composure prevailed – despite a tardy pit stop due to an issue with his back left wheel costing him valuable time. It was that incident, rather than the lap-one contact, that truly proved costly in Piastri’s fight for the podium.
“Obviously [it was] a difficult race, [and] a difficult first lap. I’ve not seen the replay. I just know from in-car, so I’ll go and have a look,” he told Sky of the contact with Norris.
“It’s obviously a great night for the whole team. Obviously [it’s] not the race I was looking for, but for the whole team, tonight is the culmination of a lot of hard work from not just this year, but lots of years. It’s a really proud moment for me to be a part of that and a proud moment for the whole team.”
And then the most important question arrived: Does he think he and Norris race fairly?
“Yes… I think we do – I don’t think there was any intention of contact, but there was, and I need to look at the replay and see what exactly happened.”
2025 F1 drivers’ standings – top five after SingaporeOscar Piastri (Australia, McLaren) 336 pointsLando Norris (Great Britain, McLaren) 314Max Verstappen (Netherlands, Red Bull) 273George Russell (Great Britain, Mercedes) 237Charles Leclerc (Monaco, Ferrari) 173