Lando Norris had a clear answer to any critics of his hard-charging pass on teammate and title rival Oscar Piastri at the Singapore Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyone on the grid would have done exactly the same thing as what I did,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I think if you fault me for just going up the inside and putting my car on the inside of a big gap then, yeah, I think you shouldn\u2019t be in Formula 1.\u201d<\/p>\n
McLaren secured the constructors’ title, its reward for one of the most dominant seasons by a team in Formula 1. How to handle the other title fight between Piastri and Norris is a question which won’t go away. <\/p>\n
McLaren had to deal with Piastri asking over the radio whether the team was \u201ccool with Lando just barging me out of the way\u201d after they banged wheels on the opening lap as Norris passed his teammate.<\/p>\n
Chief executive Zak Brown said McLaren was just \u201cletting them race\u201d but the team’s hands-on role in managing its drivers’ title fight this year means its decision not to intervene Sunday faced scrutiny.<\/p>\n
Norris defends \u2018good racing\u2019<\/p>\n
It was almost the ideal start from fifth for Norris, who sped past Kimi Antonelli and went wheel-to-wheel to pass Piastri in the first three corners. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was slippery, still wet in a lot of places\u201d after pre-race rain, Norris said. \u201cBut it\u2019s racing and I put it on the inside. I had a small correction but nothing more than that. It was good racing.\u201d Norris later said the contact with Piastri only happened after he’d also touched Max Verstappen, who was ahead on the other side.<\/p>\n
McLaren has intervened in on-track action before under its \u201cpapaya rules\u201d, asking Piastri to give back a place when Norris had a slow pit stop in Italy last month. The team didn\u2019t get involved Sunday and Piastri made his feelings clear.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not fair,\u201d Piastri said over the radio after being told McLaren thought Norris had been trying to avoid Verstappen when he hit Piastri. The Australian questioned Norris\u2019 driving \u201cif he has to avoid another car by crashing into his teammate.\u201d<\/p>\n
A slide in performance<\/p>\n
Securing the constructors\u2019 title with six races remaining underlined McLaren\u2019s status as F1\u2019s top team but both its drivers lost ground to Verstappen in the standings. McLaren is without a win in three races now.<\/p>\n
The constructors\u2019 title has been a foregone conclusion for months. McLaren’s 650 points are double the 325 of second-place Mercedes, but it’s no longer the overwhelming favorite each week.<\/p>\n
Verstappen beat Norris and Piastri at the high-speed tracks in Italy and Azerbaijan, though qualifying ahead of both McLarens was a surprise in Singapore. Norris outpaced Verstappen in the race but couldn’t make it count on a track where overtaking is difficult.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP auto racing: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/auto-racing<\/p>\n
James Ellingworth, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lando Norris had a clear answer to any critics of his hard-charging pass on teammate and title rival…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-191622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}