McLaren plans to continue allowing Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris to race against each other without intervention, despite their recent collision during the Canadian Grand Prix. However, the incident highlighted to the team that the drivers need to exercise more `caution` when competing closely.
During the final laps of the race in Montreal, as the championship-contending teammates battled for fourth place, Norris made contact with the rear of Piastri`s car. Norris quickly diffused the situation by taking full responsibility for the collision and issuing an apology to both Piastri and the team.
Following the race, Team Principal Andrea Stella indicated that while there would be “tough” discussions at the factory before the upcoming Austrian Grand Prix, the collision would not alter McLaren`s approach to how their drivers race or the `papaya rules` they have agreed upon.
Stella stressed the value of drivers being free to race and having clear guidelines on how to do so, stating, “We want to try and exercise and respect [this value] as much as we can, rather than every time that we have a proximity between the two cars, then having control from the pit wall.”
He suggested that excessive pit wall control could make racing feel “a bit of an artefact.” McLaren aims to give Lando and Oscar the chance to finish the season in positions reflecting their skill and performance, rather than the team managing their points tally.
Stella acknowledged that this free-racing approach “is not necessarily a simple and straight exercise but we want to try and do it as best as we can.”
He added that he doesn`t expect the Canadian incident to change their fundamental approach. Instead, he believes it will reinforce the principle that their drivers must apply greater caution.
“Because if we say that there should be no contact between the two McLarens, we need to have the margins to make sure that we have no contact, even if in a DRS situation the car may get almost a little bit sucked onto the other car and cause this kind of misjudgement as to the distance,” Stella explained.
Improved Judgement Needed
Given McLaren`s strong performance this season, with Piastri and Norris frequently running at the sharp end of the field, the team had anticipated that a clash between the two drivers was likely to happen sooner or later.
Now that the first such incident has occurred, Stella believes McLaren`s “strong culture” will enable both the team and the drivers to learn from the events in Canada and emerge stronger.
“In every situation in the heat of the moment that looks like the worst disaster ever but in reality the strength of being racers, the strength that comes from having a strong culture is the fact that you will process the episodes, you will review, you will take all the positive learning and you will dismiss anything that doesn’t have to come with us into the way we go racing in the future,” he said.
“We lean on our culture which is very strong and we use these episodes once they are a little chilled and our mind is colder than it is in the heat of the moment, to become a stronger team with two stronger drivers.”
Accepting that close wheel-to-wheel battles will inevitably happen again, Stella concluded, “Having experienced this kind of situation I think it will make us just more robust as a team and in terms of each of our two drivers against these situations, because the two McLarens racing close to one another will happen again, but there will have to be better judgement in terms of the distance.”
Norris` retirement in Canada means he is now 22 points behind championship leader Piastri as they head into the Austrian-Britain doubleheader. Despite finishing outside the podium spots for the first time this season in Montreal, McLaren still holds a significant lead in the Constructors` Championship, being 175 points ahead of Mercedes.
