But more broadly, Piastri felt for the third time in a five-race span that McLaren\u2019s philosophy to pursue fairness between its two drivers had adverse consequences for only one of them.<\/p>\n
In Hungary in August, Norris beat Piastri after being permitted to switch from a planned two-stop pit strategy to pit just once, repelling a late Piastri assault to win by 0.6 seconds as the Australian was warned by Stallard to \u201cremember how we go racing\u201d.<\/p>\n
Two rounds later at Monza, Piastri \u2013 who had inherited second place from Norris when Norris lost time in a shoddy pit stop \u2013 reluctantly swapped positions with his teammate after being asked by McLaren, team principal Andrea Stella calling the demand \u201ca matter of fairness\u201d.<\/p>\n
That context explains why Piastri was so irritated in Singapore, particularly as his inner circle \u2013 including former F1 racer and manager Mark Webber \u2013 had met with McLaren to debate what had happened at Monza. Piastri\u2019s initial feelings when asked to swap places \u2013 \u201cis a slow pit stop part of racing?\u201d \u2013 had necessitated the clear-the-air talks.<\/p>\n
Singapore should have been a night of celebration for McLaren despite not adding to its 12 wins this season, the team securing the F1 constructors\u2019 championship with six rounds to spare.<\/p>\n
Piastri\u2019s anger, Norris\u2019 response \u2013 \u201cI hit Max, it wasn\u2019t aggressive on my teammate\u201d \u2013 and Stella\u2019s response that the incident \u201cwould lead to some good conversations\u201d, let some of the air out of the celebratory balloon, particularly when it emerged that Piastri unplugged his team radio while being congratulated for his race by McLaren CEO Zak Brown, and that he\u2019d not been part of a visit to the podium for a team photo to celebrate the constructors\u2019 title.<\/p>\n
McLaren later tried to put the radio disconnect and podium pic stories to bed by citing operational requirements and a communication mix-up, but it only added to the optics.<\/p>\n
Confirmation of the teams\u2019 title may actually encourage McLaren to loosen the idealistic yet impossibly tight hold it has tried to have on a 2025 title fight. <\/p>\n
With six rounds to go and a total of 174 points remaining, Piastri leads Norris by 22. Reigning world champion Verstappen sits 63 points adrift of Piastri even after winning two of the past three races. Were that margin the gap between the leader and any other driver with a quarter of the season left, you wouldn\u2019t consider Verstappen\u2019s title chances as anything more than mathematically possible.<\/p>\n
For Piastri, Verstappen narrowing that gap to something more threatening may actually be a benefit.<\/p>\n
Whichever McLaren driver has the ascendancy if Verstappen\u2019s championship bid became more than a longshot should \u2013 should \u2013 prompt the British team to focus its attentions on its leading driver, something it has eschewed while fighting the perception among some sections of the fan base that Englishman Norris, by dint of his passport, is favoured over Australian Piastri.<\/p>\n
\u201cPerhaps McLaren should now just let their two drivers duke it out, gloves off, between themselves with zero interference.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martin Brundle<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a narrative that has only gained traction after the three incidents in the past five races where Norris could be seen to have gained a helping hand by the team. More accurately, though, the narrative is fed by McLaren\u2019s continual over-engineering of a title fight it is desperately trying to control. Even more pertinently, it is fuelled by the TV coverage fans receive in Australia from a British broadcaster that routinely tiptoes to the precipice of cheerleading for all four British drivers, not just Norris.<\/p>\n
McLaren \u2013 a company founded by a New Zealander with a Bahraini majority owner and run by an American CEO with an Italian team principal \u2013 is as international as any other F1 team.<\/p>\n
That McLaren has invested in Norris through its junior programs from as far back as 2017 and only inherited Piastri after a 2022 contract dispute with Alpine, logically suggests that a Norris world title would be the ultimate reward for that commitment of time and money, but not a factor in overtly prioritising one driver over another for a team that hasn\u2019t won F1\u2019s biggest prize in 17 long years.<\/p>\n
A Piastri v Norris championship battle was always on the cards in 2025 after McLaren snapped a 26-year drought between constructors\u2019 titles in 2024. With the sport\u2019s rule book largely staying untouched, the form guide from the end of one season spilled into the next.<\/p>\n
Next year, however \u2013 with F1\u2019s regulations set for their biggest shake-up in more than a decade in what effectively acts as a hard reset for the series \u2013 adds extra tension to this year\u2019s title fight.<\/p>\n
The last time F1 changed tack so significantly \u2013 the introduction of V6 turbo hybrid engines in 2014 \u2013 the pecking order was upended so seismically that Red Bull, winners of the final nine races of 2013, were also-rans the next year as Mercedes won 16 races between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg to kick-start a run of seven consecutive driver\/constructor championship doubles.<\/p>\n
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Continuity between regulation changes isn\u2019t a given, and with Norris contracted to McLaren for the next two seasons and Piastri until 2028, there\u2019s the possibility that this season might be each driver\u2019s best chance to win the championship in the immediate future.<\/p>\n
With the constructors\u2019 title secure and what constitutes acceptable conduct in the \u201cPapaya Rules\u201d manifesto revealing itself race by race, it\u2019s a chance Piastri is still best placed to capitalise on, once his exasperation over Singapore evaporates.<\/p>\n
Knowing where he stands and how he can race is arguably worth much more than the three championship points he lost to Norris, as British former racer turned pundit Martin Brundle suggested in his post-Singapore column for Sky Sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe dynamics between the two McLaren drivers will irrevocably change going forward,\u201d Brundle wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cPerhaps McLaren should now just let their two drivers duke it out, gloves off, between themselves with zero interference.\u201d<\/p>\n