Oscar Piastri was left furious with Lando Norris after the Formula 1 title rivals clashed on he opening lap of the Singapore Grand Prix on Sunday.
George Russell won from pole at Marina Bay, his second victory of the season, with Max Verstappen pipping Norris to second, while Piastri finished fourth.
The results means Norris has reduced the gap to Piastri in the title race to 22 points with six races remaining, while McLaren have clinched the constructor’s championship.
But their celebrations were dampened by a contentious moment on the opening lap when Norris accidentally made contact with Piastri as he overtook his teammate and rival.
The Australian was left raging in his cockpit, saying on the radio: ‘So are we cool with Lando just barging me out of the way or? What’s the go there?’
The incident was deemed to just be a racing incident, with Piastri’s engineer telling him: ‘As a team, we can see Lando had to avoid Verstappen, so we won’t take any action during the race. We can review further afterwards.’
But the driver was less than impressed, retorting: ‘That’s not fair. I’m sorry, that’s not fair.
‘If he has to avoid another car by crashing into his team-mate, then that’s a pretty **** job of avoiding.’
Speaking to Sky Sports afterward, the 24-year-old was much calmer and said he would need to watch the incident back before commentating further: ‘Obviously a difficult race, a difficult first lap. I’ve not seen the replay.
‘I just know from in car, so I’ll go and have a look. 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.
‘It’s obviously a great night for the whole team. Obviously 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.’
Speaking immediately after the race, Norris defended himself: ‘It was slippery. It was still wet in a lot of places.
‘But it’s racing. I put it on the inside, I had a small correction, but nothing more than that. It was good racing.’
F1 standings after Singapore Grand Prix
- Oscar Piastri (McLaren) – 336pts
- Lando Norris (McLaren) – 314pts
- Max Verstappen (Red Bull) – 273pts
- George Russell (Mercedes) – 237pts
- Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) – 173pts
With the constructors’ championship sewn up, tension between the McLaren stars is expected to grow as they battle to win their first drivers’ title.
2009 F1 champions Jenson Button says Piastri should accept that Norris got the better of him in Singapore and move on, with the United States Grand Prix up next on October 20.
‘It’s racing. He [Norris] is side-by-side. He had the 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 purposefully try to push him in the wall.
‘It’s not like he drove him into the wall. It’s not like he drove all the way to the wall hoping that Oscar would 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 team-mate got the better of me there!” And that’s it.’
More to follow…