McLaren CEO Zak Brown said the repercussions facing Lando Norris for his collision with teammate Oscar Piastri at the Singapore Grand Prix are small enough that they will likely go unnoticed by fans.
Ahead of this weekend’s U.S. Grand Prix, Norris confirmed he will face “consequences” for the first lap contact with Piastri in Singapore two weeks ago, but McLaren has refused to provide details of what they are.
Brown said the punishment was in line with the size of Norris’ mistake, which saw him gain a position from Piastri after the contact but without causing damage to his teammate’s car.
“It’s marginal,” Brown told Sky Sports. “It’s consistent with what happened — which was a racing incident, at the end of the day, at the start of a grand prix with a track that was somewhat damp.
“It wasn’t intentional, so very marginal, it probably won’t be noticed. Lando and Oscar know what it is, which is what’s most important.
“Of course we want to be transparent with our fans. We are doing it the hard way, trying to let both guys race for the championship. The easy way out would be to have a one and two as some teams do, but that’s not how McLaren want to go racing.”
Piastri currently leads Norris by 22 points in the drivers’ standings with six races remaining, but has seen his lead narrow by 12 points after Norris finished ahead of him at each of the last three races.
Since the start of the season, McLaren has made clear that its drivers are free to race each other on track as long as they avoid contact.
Brown said both drivers have always been aware of potential consequences in the case of a collision, and that the situation is not as complicated as it has been portrayed in the media.
“You know, we set out at the beginning of the year how we want to race and how we want to race each other,” he said. “The papaya rules, which everyone likes to talk about, is pretty much one rule, which is don’t touch each other and don’t run each other off the track. So it’s quite simple and it’s kind of taken on a life of its own.
“And we just want to make sure that while they’re racing hard, they don’t come together. That puts them at risk, puts the team at risk. And so we agreed with them in the offseason how we would handle certain situations.
“And so we worked through with them with different consequences for different situations. It was a pretty minor situation, so it’s a pretty minor consequence.”
Asked why McLaren would not elaborate on the consequences facing Norris, Brown said there were some aspects of racing that all teams protect in order to avoid giving away a competitive advantage.
“We’re racing against nine other teams,” Brown said. “I don’t think you want to necessarily show your hand on how you go motor racing.
“We try to be as transparent as possible, but there’s a reason why engineering debriefs are only within teams. Otherwise, you’d start inviting other teams in.
“I think that’s the best we can do. We try to be as transparent as possible in saying that some action has been taken. I think that’s been very transparent.
“At the end of the day, we’re at a sporting event. We can’t necessarily tell everyone everything. Our set-up sheets aren’t public either.”
