Piastri reveals consequence of ‘nasty’ Norris fight: Question of whether one of us was even sat here
Originally published by PlanetF1
Oscar Piastri claims that had his fight with Lando Norris turned “nasty” last season, one of them would not be wearing papaya orange this year.
Last year, Piastri and Norris engaged in one of the most amicable intra-team title fights witnessed in decades, if ever in Formula 1.
Oscar Piastri explains McLaren harmony with Lando Norris
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Unlike Ayrton Senna versus Alain Prost or Lewis Hamilton versus Nico Rosberg, the McLaren team-mates were all smiles even when the pendulum swung in the opposite direction, or in the heat of the moment, they felt hard done by.
While Norris led the early running, Piastri gained control in Saudi Arabia in what appeared to be a two-driver fight for the world title.
Team orders in Norris’ favour at the Italian Grand Prix, where Piastri was told to give his team-mate second place after a slow pit stop saw Norris fall behind the Australian, appeared to ignite the battle with Piastri arguing his case over the radio.
But by the time the race was done, though he finished third behind Norris, the fire had gone out of his argument.
And so the season went.
Even when Norris collided with Piastri at the start of the Singapore Grand Prix, there was anger in the moment, but handshakes after. The same at the United States GP Sprint when Piastri crashed into Norris.
When the tables turned in Norris’ favour at the Mexican Grand Prix, and fans cried foul as they suggested McLaren was favouring the Briton, there were never any harsh words spoken.
There was, throughout it all, an absence of antagonism.
That, says Piastri, is because both drivers knew that if things turned nasty, one of them could’ve been without a race-seat for the F1 2026 season.
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“We get asked about our relationship as team-mates quite a lot,” he told the High Performance podcast.
“And I think probably it was actually better at the back end of last year than it was, you know, say, the first six months that we were getting to know each other, just because we know each other more. And we spend so much time around one another every year.
“So it really didn’t change much.
“Because I think we both knew the situation we were in of trying to beat each other and only one of us could win. We knew all of that. But it never, it never got nasty.
“And I think that’s a really important thing, because I think it would have been very easy for last year to have got nasty.
“And well, there would have probably been, if it really got bad, the question of whether one of us was even sat here doing this interview wearing orange.
“But I think just the team dynamics is so important to protect going forward.
“Obviously we’ve not quite started this year the way we want, but it would have been so easy for the battle of last year to make it look 10 times worse and 10 times worse for a long time. So I think we both knew that as well.”
So much so that when the title race heated up, the team-mates still shared information between the two sides of the garage.
“You can’t hide,” Piastri said, “and it goes the opposite way as well.
“You know if you’re in that position where someone else has done something and you go, I need to work out how to do that, you want as many tools at your disposal as you can get.
“So, yeah, I think everyone probably has their little moments where they go, ‘okay, I want to keep that one to myself’, but at the end of the day, if you start going down that route, eventually it’ll bite you when you probably the least want it.”
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