Oscar Piastri quizzed about Lando Norris tension amid McLaren team order drama

Oscar Piastri insists that McDonald’s and Monopoly united him with Lando Norris - but wants discussions about how McLaren deal with future incidents.

Piastri won an F1 grand prix for the first time last weekend in Hungary, when teammate Norris finally obeyed team orders to let him through.

Piastri had led until Lap 48 but different pit stop strategies meant Norris inherited the lead, which he kept for an awkward period while his team demanded that he hand it back.

“I wasn’t surprised because he’s a racing driver winning an F1 race,” Piastri reacted at Spa ahead of this weekend’s F1 Belgian Grand Prix, where Crash.net are in the paddock.

“It’s only natural to want to do that and give yourself every opportunity. Maybe it went on for a bit longer than I expected it to.

“I think that’s also something we need to discuss, whether there would have been more opportunities to race each other if things had been done a bit differently.

“We discuss a lot of things as a team but you can’t plan for every single scenario. This one admittedly had some nuances to it that meant we were sort of in an unprecedented position before the race.

“I’m not surprised at all that he wanted to keep the lead of the race and I think it’s only natural.”

Piastri addresses Norris relationship

Piastri was asked if McLaren are content that they dealt with the furore correctly, and he replied: “It’s still something we need to discuss a little bit.

“I think they were very sensible decisions. We’ve gone through that part of things for sure.

“It’s not a given that if Max had got through Lewis and Charles, he could have posed a threat. If Lewis had kept going and we were behind him, he could have also been a threat as we saw with Max at the end.

“I think they were very sensible decisions and done in complete trust of Lando and myself in mind. I think that side of things was very sensible.

“It’s obviously a little bit different when you are fighting for wins, of course there’s always the element of not wanting to give it up no matter what side you are on.

“It’s maybe something we need to adjust slightly but I think we always need to remember we are racing for the team and trying to win the constructors’ championship.”

Piastri clarified his relationship with Norris: “We’ve not really spoken much about the race. We’ve shared McDonald’s and played Monopoly.

“We’re still on good terms, on the same terms. We’re all good and there’s still a lot of respect there between us. It goes both ways. We’re still good.”

Piastri insists that McLaren already have in place the ‘rules of engagement’ for the next time he and Norris are battling for position.

“We discuss that we’re racing for the team, and we’ve been, maybe not in a one-two scenario but we’ve been close to each other a lot of times on track and close for podiums and stuff like that before,” he said.

“Again, this situation specifically was pretty nuanced and maybe we hadn’t discussed fully, but I think there is an expectation that we’re going to race each other hard, but fair, and never come into contact.

“I think we always have in mind that certain strategic decisions - like the second pit stop timing - are down with the team’s ambitions in mind.

“Like I said, if we were flat out racing each other and we didn’t have anyone else to worry about behind then the pit stop order would have been completely different I’m sure. But we did have cars to worry about so that’s why we swapped it and that’s why we swapped it back.”

Will Norris do another favour for Piastri, if asked?

“I’m not sure I’d say he gave it to me, maybe he gave it back to me,” Piastri insisted.

“But ultimately he did give the position back, I know it’s not an easy position to be in. Especially as we all want to go out and win.

“Maybe it took a few laps longer than maybe I thought, but it still happened, and it’s extremely easy in the heat of the moment, leading a race, to think selfishly, and I would have thought selfishly as well, but we go racing for McLaren knowing that certain decisions are made with the team in mind and that we are racing for the team at the end of the day.”

And will Piastri aid championship-chasing Norris at future grands prix?

“Yes, I know that that is a possibility,” he answered. “Of course I want to try and get myself up as high as I can, but ultimately I race for McLaren and they have the ultimate say.

“I’m going to try and make up as many points as a I can, of course we’re still very early in the season, and I’m a long way behind in the drivers’ standings but I’m also not out of it, and it doesn’t take that many races to be in the same position that Lando’s in. So let’s see how it plays out.

“If they need me to be a team player and try and help Lando then of course I’ll do that, but I think the biggest thing is trying to score the most points of all the teams and win the constructors’. I think that’s definitely the biggest opportunity we have, and we’ll see if there’s some others as well.”