McLaren holds Norris accountable for contact with Piastri in Singapore

Lando Norris says McLaren held him accountable for the contact with Oscar Piastri in Singapore, but would not elaborate on any repercussions at this weekend’s United States Grand Prix.

The incident occurred when Norris tried to overtake Piastri down the inside of Turn 3 on the opening lap, but light contact with the rear of Max Verstappen’s car resulted in a snap that led to a further touch with Piastri. The Australian was unhappy on team radio at the time while Norris defended the move post-race, but now the latter says McLaren attributed responsibility to him.

“The team held me accountable for what happened, which I think is fair, and we made progress from there on understanding what the repercussions were for myself, to avoid anything worse happening than what did,” Norris said.

“But nothing changes from how we go racing. It's just we and the team want to avoid those kind of things happening again. Simply for the reason that there was contact between two McLaren cars.

“Zak [Brown] and Andrea [Stella] don't want that to happen, and I think as teammates, we don't want that to happen. So of course, that's the reason for why I was held accountable. It has consequences.”

While Norris went on to finish ahead of Piastri in Singapore despite requests from the championship leader to address the incident, Piastri insists he is happy with how the situation has been handled since.

“We had a lot of discussions, as you would expect,” Piastri said. “They were very productive. I think we’re very clear on how we want to go racing as a team, and that includes going forward. The incident we had in Singapore isn't how we want to go racing. So, Lando’s taken responsibility for that, and so has the team.

“So, I think it's quite clear for us as a team that how lap one unfolded wasn't how we want to go racing.

“I'm very happy [there’s no favoritism]. I think for me, again, we analyzed the incident, and there has been responsibility placed on Lando ultimately in that collision. But I'm very happy that there's no favoritism or bias.”

Despite the regularity with which McLaren has had to address situations between its two drivers, Piastri also doesn’t feel the team is over-complicating the championship fight.

“The only thing I would say is it's not always clear immediately – in the car or in the race – what all the reasoning for certain decisions is, but I think it's always been very clear afterwards why certain decisions have been taken and why things have been done in a certain way," he said.

"For me, I don't think it is over-complicated, no. I think everything has had a justifiable reason.

“I would say I'm not expecting it to be redressed on track any time or every time, but ultimately we know how we're expected to go racing, and if we don't, there's consequences for that.

“So, I'm not going to change anything in how I go racing. I think it's clear to me. I don't think what happened was purposeful, or I think it was just a slight misjudgment, but ultimately, I'm not going to change how I go racing because of that.”