Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri have been battling it out at the top of the Formula One leaderboard this season, but the McLaren duo have shown they have each other’s backs
Lando Norris leapt to Oscar Piastri’s defence at the Singapore Grand Prix after his McLaren team-mate was absent from the podium celebrations. The pair are fierce competitors on the track and have been locked in battle for supremacy in the Formula 1 standings.
Despite their on-circuit rivalry, the McLaren duo have demonstrated their mutual support on numerous occasions. Team boss Zak Brown appeared on the High Performance Podcast to discuss an incident between the two drivers.
Piastri was nowhere to be seen during a team celebration at the Singapore GP following Norris’s third-place finish and McLaren’s Constructors’ Championship triumph. Detailing what happened, Brown said: “This is how strong I think we are as a team because we also know when we see something, we’ll bring it to each other’s attention.
“In Singapore, we clinch the constructors’ championship. Lando’s on the podium. Oscar’s in the media pen, which is down the road. Formula 1, impromptu, says get the team up on the podium. First thing, when we got up there, Lando and I went, ‘Man, Oscar’s not up here. This is going to look terrible.’
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“But like we know how that happened. He’s in the media pen; this wasn’t something planned. So, we get up there and do it. And the first thing Lando and I said was, ‘Ah man, like, where’s Oscar?’ But of course, the media narrative was Oscar’s boycotting; we didn’t want him there. And it was like, ‘What are you talking about?'”
Norris’ defence of Piastri demonstrated that, despite their on-track rivalry, they share a mutual respect as part of McLaren’s partnership. Brown went on to recall an instance where Piastri showed his own courtesy towards the team.
He said: “And then when I was thanking Oscar on the radio, I didn’t see where he was on the track, and he was in parc ferme in the process of shutting down the car. So when I was thanking him, it looked like he unplugged, like he hung up the phone on me. It’s not what happened. I didn’t even notice it.
“Oscar noticed it. And went, ‘Hey, make sure Zak knows, I didn’t hear him.’ So like, we got each other’s backs. We care what each other thinks.
“And so Oscar, when I went, ‘Hey, make sure Oscar knows this is how this happened on the podium.’ And he went, ‘Yeah, I figured it out.’ And then he kind of reciprocated, and said, ‘Hey, make sure Zak knows I didn’t hang up the phone.'”
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