It seems like a tale as old as Formula 1 itself. The first goal of any F1 driver is to beat their teammate, and the stakes couldn’t be higher when a world championship is on the line. Lando Norris crashed out of Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix attempting to pass Oscar Piastri, his McLaren teammate, for fourth place during the race’s closing laps. Norris quickly admitted fault, but this will likely be the first of many tussles between the papaya-colored cars this season.
It finally happened: a clash between the McLaren teammates. Lando went for a gap that didn’t exist and crashed out. He owned up to it immediately and took the blame.
#F1 | #CanadianGP— Ryan Erik King (@ryanerikking.bsky.social) 2025-06-15T19:38:09.631Z
With five laps to go, Norris lunged at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve’s hairpin to move into fourth. However, Piasti cut to the British driver’s inside to fight to keep his spot. The two McLarens hurtled side-by-side down the lengthy Casino Straight. Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli later admitted in the cool-down room that he purposely fed slipstream to both Norris and Piastri to keep them alongside each other. While the young Italian’s strategy worked and he secured his first career podium, chaos unfolded behind him.
Piastri was the first McLaren driver through the final chicane, and Norris immediately jumped at the next opportunity to get around the Australian. Despite the preferred inside line being covered off, he drove his car into a space that didn’t exist. Norris collided with Piastri’s left-rear tire, ripping off his front wing and putting himself into the inside wall down the pit straight. The safety car was deployed, and the race was over. Piastri crossed the finish line while Norris walked back to the garage.
McLaren will continue to let its drivers race each other
While Ferrari and other teams would be verging on a meltdown over an intra-team crash, McLaren is doubling down on their nebulous concept of “papaya rules.” The team firmly believes that their drivers should be allowed to compete against each other on equal footing. Team principal Andreas Stella told Autosport:
“Being free to race is a value that we want to try and exercise and respect as much as we can, rather than every time that we have a proximity between the two cars, then having control from the pit wall.”
“We want to give Lando and Oscar opportunities to race, and opportunities to be at the end of the season in the position that they deserve to be in based on their merit and performance rather than realise that the points have been controlled more by the team than the quality of their driving.”
It might have been over a decade, but we’ve been here many times before with McLaren. During the 2011 Canadian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton collided with Jenson Button down the pit straight while attempting a similar maneuver to Norris. Hamilton was forced to retire his damaged three-wheeled car, and Button went on to win the longest F1 race ever.
The clash between champions was a once-off incident, but many fear or excitedly hope that the Norris-Piastri partnership devolved into a feud similar to McLaren’s 2007 campaign. The then-rookie Hamilton and defending champion Fernando Alonso cost each other the championship through disobeying team orders and intentionally hurting the other’s chances. Piastri and Norris are currently first and second in the standings, respectively. However, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen is ready to pounce on any infighting to defend his title unless he gets a race ban first.
