Autobayng News Team
McLaren said they had no concerns over the first-lap incident between their two drivers which infuriated Oscar Piastri.
Lando Norris dived past his team mate at turn three at the start of the race, but the pair made contact as he did so. Norris also damaged his front wing endplate by touching Max Verstappen’s car.
Piastri asked the team several times whether they believed Norris had respected their internal racing rules. The team did not order any change in the running order and Piastri went on to finish the race behind Norris.
Afterwards McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown said he was satisfied the incident between the two had been fair but tough.
“Like all race weekends, you’ll review everything,” he told Sky. “At the first corner it looks like Max and Lando either touched or had to check up, and so it was clearly an exciting turn two incident.
“So [it was] tough racing, but when you’ve got three or four cars all stacked up, that’s going to happen every once in a while. So we’ll look at it in more depth on Monday, but clearly just hard racing.”
Piastri said it was “a difficult first lap” but he still believes he and Norris race each other cleanly.
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“Yes, I think we do,” he said. “I don’t think, obviously, there was any intention of contact, but there was [contact]. I need to look at the replay and see what exactly happened.”
Norris felt his move was within the limits of what the team considers acceptable. He pointed out it had been difficult to judge how deep to brake due to the damp conditions at the start of the race.
“It was slippery, still wet in a lot of places,” said Norris. “But it’s racing and I put it on the inside, I had a small correction, but nothing more than that. It was good racing.”
The stewards noted the collision between the McLaren drivers but chose not to investigate it.
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