Lando Norris brushes off incident with Oscar Piastri: “It was good racing”

Lando Norris has downplayed his incident with Oscar Piastri on the opening lap of the Singapore Grand Prix, labelling it as “good racing”.

Norris enjoyed a strong race at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, finishing third to reduce Piastri’s lead in the 2025 F1 drivers’ championship to 22 points with six rounds to go.

The British driver made a strong start from fifth on the grid to move into third by the end of the opening lap.

Norris got ahead of Piastri at Turn 3 after making slight contact with Max Verstappen ahead.

The incident left Piastri frustrated, saying over team radio: “Yeah I mean that wasn’t very team like, but sure.”

Piastri queried whether McLaren would potentially swap the positions back, leading to further complaints from the championship leader when his engineer, Tom Stallard, pointed out the stewards would be taking no action.

“That is not fair,” he said. “I am sorry. That’s not fair. If he has to avoid another car by crashing into his teammate then that is a pretty sh** job of avoiding it.”

Giving his view on the incident after the race, Norris felt it was just normal racing.

“Yeah, I mean, it was slippery [and] still wet in a lot of places, but it’s racing,” Norris said.

“I put it on the inside, I had a small correction, but nothing more than that. It was good racing.

“And like I said, I wish I could have given a little bit more. I wish there were a few more overtaking opportunities today, but I feel like I did everything I could today, and I’m happy with that.”

Norris on Verstappen duel

Norris spent the majority of the race stuck behind Verstappen.

Verstappen was nursing numerous issues with his car, which seemed to affect his pace.

Norris was pleased with his race, with the result enough to hand McLaren the constructors’ title with six races to go.

“I’m happy with today, I got forward two positions. We won as a team, the constructors’, once again. So I’m most happy about that,” he added.

“I mean, it was a tough race. Max didn’t make any mistakes. Whether I was feeling good or not, I gave it my all today, and got close, a few chances where we were side by side, and some good little bits of battling.

“But just too difficult to overtake, which is a shame, because the pace was very strong today, and I would have loved to try to catch George and given him a little bit more pressure.”