Following the Norris/Piastri crash, Andrea Stella (McLaren) is fuming: “Unacceptable”

Hang on a minute, didn’t we have the ‘papaya rules’? You know, the guidelines set by the long-established McLaren team – Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri are allowed to drive aggressively, but colliding with each other is absolutely out of the question.

Yet that is exactly what happened in the Singapore Sprint. Afterwards, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella and McLaren CEO Zak Brown went into hiding for a while. In interviews following the Sprint, Norris and Piastri beat about the bush, taking great care not to say anything the wrong way.

In any case, valuable points were lost: by the end of the Singapore Sprint, the tyres on Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari were shot, and Piastri and Norris had a good chance of overtaking the red racer, but no, Mr Norris was determined to get past Mr Piastri, with a manoeuvre that was, at best, unfortunate – and rather clumsy and stupid to boot.

Piastri retired due to the collision, whilst Norris finished only eighth and managed to salvage a single point.

After the Singapore qualifying session, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella finally faced the uncomfortable questions, and it was obvious that the Italian was still upset.

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Stella said: “It was a long day. The sprint race was one that would have earned us some good points, as we were clearly not in a position to win.”

“So we were well on the way to scoring solid points, with a chance of catching Leclerc, and then we saw our cars collide. That effectively knocked us out of the race. Lando managed to salvage a point, but that’s no consolation either.”

“Seeing two McLarens collide like that is simply unacceptable. It’s something we’ll be discussing with our drivers again. We’ll do that behind closed doors. We’ll have to reiterate to them that the team’s interests far outweigh those of any individual.”

“There must be no room for ego. No individual is bigger than the team. That certainly needs to be emphasised once again.”