Why McLaren’s F1 title fight hasn’t involved a "fallout" between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri

McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown has insisted that there is no tension between drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri amid the close championship fight.

The Woking outfit has opted to not back a number one driver for the title battle. Instead, it has maintained a 'may the best man win' mentality in backing both Norris and Piastri. The drivers are allowed to fight it out on track with the proviso that they keep it clean, which has been successful with the exception of a handful of instances such as the Canadian and Singapore grands prix.

"There hasn't even been a fallout," he explained during an appearance on the High Performance podcast.

When asked if that was still the case after the few on-track collisions between the McLaren duo, including Norris's lunging move at the start of the Singapore Grand Prix, Brown added: "Not between them really. Yeah, not once. You know when you can walk into a room and you can kind of feel the tension?

"Not once. Not once. Even when they've touched each other, they may not have been totally aligned around what Andrea and I and the team have come up with, but they've never done 'Lando did that, Oscar did that'.

"Any time they get grumpy, it's a little bit actually towards me and Andrea because we're trying to be fair and balanced. And I think the fact that they've both been a little bit grumpy at times with us actually tells you things have been fair and balanced because we're trying to make sure they race clean.

Lando Norris, McLaren, Zak Brown, Chief Executive Officer of McLaren, Oscar Piastri, McLaren

Photo by: Bryn Lennon / Formula 1 via Getty Images

"All the incidents that they've had, which isn't that many, have all just been, at the end of the day, racing incidents. But we want to make sure the championship's decided on the track and not through that. I think we're lucky that we have the two drivers that we have.

"I'm not sure that Andrea and I and the team would be able to manage other drivers the way we can Oscar and Lando. So I think a lot of credit is due to just who they are as individuals. And that's part of our recruiting process for drivers is character, and do they do they think like us? And we talk about the elephant in the room all the time. We have massive communication transparency; we talk about it all the time."

Three rounds remain in the 2025 season. Norris currently leads the standings by 24 points. Piastri follows in second with Red Bull's Max Verstappen in third, 25 points behind Piastri.