Lando Norris-Oscar Piastri Singapore GP collision has changed ground rules in F1 title battle, says Martin Brundle
Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri made contact on the first lap of the Singapore Grand Prix as the Brit passed his team-mate for third place; Piastri was initially angered by the move; Sky Sports F1's Martin Brundle believes the incident has "changed the ground rules" in the title battle
Monday 6 October 2025 14:02, UK
Martin Brundle believes "the ground rules have changed" between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri after the title-contending McLaren team-mates made contact on the opening lap of the Singapore Grand Prix.
With Norris starting fifth and Piastri third at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, the former took advantage of a strong getaway to surge past the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli and launch an attempted overtake on his team-mate.
Norris got up the inside of Piastri at Turn 3, but then made contact with the Red Bull of Max Verstappen ahead, with his reaction to that initial collision sending him right and into his team-mate, with the heavy wheel-to-wheel hit almost sending the Australian into the barrier.
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Piastri appeared initially to suggest over the radio that McLaren should reverse his and Norris' positions, and then fumed when he was told the team wouldn't "take any action during the race".
He said on the radio: "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."
Sky Sports F1 commentator Brundle's assessment during the race was: "I think the ground rules between the two McLarens have just changed for the rest of the season.
"I thought it was punchy, opportunistic, aggressive, but this is a motor race. The ground rules have just been reset.
"I can't see how McLaren would swap that round or how they could justify (swapping) it.
"But Oscar will say, 'ok, then, that's it. That's how we're going racing.'"
Piastri more measured after race
Despite Norris' best attempts to challenge Verstappen for second place, the difficulty of overtaking meant the McLaren duo finished in the same positions they ended the first lap.
The upshot was that Norris reduced Piastri's championship lead to 22 points, while Verstappen closed to within 63 points of the Australian with six rounds of the season remaining.
The result also saw McLaren seal a second successive Constructors' Championship, with the team winning back-to-back titles for the first time since 1991.
Piastri, who was clearly keen for the team's triumph not to be overshadowed, was measured in his post-race interview with Sky Sports F1.
"Obviously a difficult race, a difficult first lap. I've not seen the replay. I just know from in the car, so I'll go and have a look," he said.
"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."
Asked whether he believes that he and Norris still race "cleanly", Piastri replied: "Yes, I think we do. 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."
Norris: Last thing I want to do is make contact
Norris said the contact with his team-mate had been a result of his first collision with Verstappen, and insisted he had more to lose from a crash than Piastri.
He told Sky Sports F1: "I really need to go and look at it first. The last thing I want to do is make contact. I can just as easily put myself out of the race, which is the last thing I can allow to happen.
"There was a big gap on the inside and I just put myself there. It's just the fact I've clipped Max, which has allowed me to have that little correction. I think without that, nothing would have happened, and I just would have passed easily."
Speaking later in a press conference for the top three drivers, Norris added: "Anyone on the grid would have done exactly the same thing as I did. So, I think if you fault me for just going on the inside and putting my car on the inside of a big gap, then I think you shouldn't be in Formula 1. I don't think there was anything wrong that I did.
"Of course, I misjudged a little bit how close I was to Max, but that's racing. Nothing happened otherwise, and I'm sure I still would have ended up ahead of Oscar anyway because I was on the inside and he would have had the dirty side of the track on the outside.
"The last thing I want is to make contact with my team-mate, especially because all I get is questions from you guys. I'm the one that can't afford anything compared to him. I would put myself at risk just as much if that kind of thing happens.
"I'll see what I can do with it next time. But the FIA obviously thought it was fine, and the team did too. So, that's it."
Brown: It was tough racing
McLaren's stance on the incident was made quite clear by the fact they told Piastri they wouldn't be taking any action, but chief executive Zak Brown explained after the race that he viewed it as "hard" and "tough" racing.
"Like all race weekends you review everything. It looks like Max and Lando either touched or had to check up, so it was clearly an exciting Turn 3 incident. Racing, tough racing.
"When you have three or four cars all stacked up, that's going to happen.
"So we will look at it in more depth on Monday but clearly just hard racing."
Sky Sports F1 pundits Jenson Button and Jamie Chadwick agreed that Norris had not done anything wrong.
Button said: "It's racing. He's 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."
Chadwick added: "I can see that from Oscar's cockpit, he's not seen the whole sequence of events, but it's such low grip and Lando had to go for it. There was a gap there.
"He misjudged it a little bit and clipped the back of Max, which gave him a bit of front-wing damage and then sent him into Oscar."
F1's title race now heads back to North America, with the United States Grand Prix in Austin up first on October 17-19 live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW - no contract, cancel anytime
