McLaren CEO Zak Brown is not worried about future tensions between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri – they will maintain “healthy competition “
With the exception of a contact at the Italian Grand Prix, the relationship between McLaren team-mates Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri was largely harmonious in 2023. But as the two are often close to each other in terms of speed, the team is aware that this can also change.
“We’re aware that whenever you have two drivers, one has to beat the other on some weekends,” says McLaren CEO Zak Brown.
“They are very competitive at the moment. You can feel a real energy around them when they’re driving for the team. We know the day will come – probably sooner rather than later – when they will look after their own interests.”
For Norris, 2023 was his fifth Formula 1 season with McLaren, while Piastri joined the team as a rookie. The difference in experience between the two is reflected in the results: Norris scored more than twice as many points as the Australian and finished on the podium seven times, while Piastri did so twice.
However, he won the sprint in Qatar, something Norris has not yet achieved. Overall, the 22-year-old had an impressive rookie season and proved himself to be a star of the future. Even Norris admitted that the youngster is keeping him on his toes. And McLaren expects him to get even stronger in the coming years.
Any tensions between the team-mates are almost inevitable. But Brown says: “I think Andrea and I have our strengths in driver management and I think we can get ahead of that and keep it a healthy competition. “
The team had already sought a conversation with the drivers when Norris and Piastri collided in the first chicane at Monza, rather than simply letting the incident go and turning it into a potential problem for the future.
“From the outside you can sometimes see how things escalate and it seems that the team didn’t intervene early enough. After Monza, the first and only time they touched, we had a very healthy conversation. We’re not waiting for it to happen a second or third time,” the McLaren CEO states.
“I think it helps to understand the psychology of the driver and when and where and how best to approach him, because I’ve seen that you can approach a driver at the wrong time and make it worse. “
