Lando Norris defends his maneuver with Oscar Piastri
The McLaren driver assures that any driver would have done what he did
Lando Norris defended his controversial maneuver on Oscar Piastri after being accused by the Australian of having done a terrible job avoiding the collision on the first lap in Singapore.
While George Russell put in an impeccable performance from pole position to achieve his second victory of an impressive year, Norris’ latent rivalry with his teammate in McLarenPiastri, finally blew up when their wheels collided in the third corner.
Lando Norriswho started two places behind Piastri, was half a car length behind his teammate at Turn 2 before launching into the next left-hand corner. Norris brushed against the back of the Red Bull of Max Verstappen and the contact sent him into Piastri and then ahead of his teammate.
The request of Oscar Piastri to McLaren to restore positions fell on deaf ears. Piastri crossed the finish line in fourth place, followed by Norris, third, one place ahead, reducing the gap in the championship from 25 to 22 points.
Max Verstappenrunner-up of the day, is 63 points behind the championship leader, with 174 points still up for grabs over the final six rounds.
“Anyone on the grid would have done exactly the same thing as me, so if you blame me for going inside such a big gap, you shouldn’t be on the grid. Formula 1“Norris said of his first-lap maneuver. “There was nothing wrong with what I did.”
“I slightly misjudged how close I was to Max, but that’s racing and I would have finished ahead of Oscar anyway. I was on the inside and the last thing I want is to affect my teammate.”
“With the position I occupy (in the championship), I can’t afford to do that compared to him. I put myself at risk if something like that happens. The FIA considered it correct and so did the team.”
The stewards noticed the collision between the Papaya pilots, but decided not to take any action.
“That wasn’t very team-like, but of course,” Piastri protested on the radio. “So we’re okay with Lando cutting me off?”
Race engineer Tom Stallard informed Piastri that McLaren He was investigating the critical point before breaking the news his pilot didn’t want to hear.
“As a team, we see that Lando has to avoid Verstappen, so we will not take any action during the race,” Stallard replied. “We can review it later.”
Piastri was not impressed and added: “That’s not fair. I’m sorry, it’s not fair.”
Stallard responded: “Oscar, we’ll have a chance to review it together later. Focus on this race, buddy. We can still get a good result here.”
Piastri replied: “Yes, but if he (Norris) has to avoid another car colliding with his teammate, then it’s a real piece of shit to avoid me.”
Speaking after the hot and humid race in the city-state, a more reflective Piastri said: “I need to review the replays in more detail and then come to a conclusion.”
“Right now, it’s the first round, tension is high and we are encouraged to share our opinion on what happened. I did and we will discuss it later.”
