Alex Albon predicts whether Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri will fall out at McLaren amid F1 title battle

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The title battle between the McLaren drivers is heating up as they enter the halfway point of the season.

Lando Norris is now just eight points away from Oscar Piastri and stands a chance of levelling the playing field if he wins both the Sprint and Grand Prix in Belgium.

The pair have been closely matched in the last couple of races and faced their fair share of on-track incidents. Norris and Piastri collided in Canada, which Norris admitted was his fault instantly, and later Piastri had a potential victory taken away at the British GP after a Safety Car infringement.

Martin Brundle predicted ‘fireworks’ would ensue at McLaren, after seeing a side to Piastri he had never seen following his penalty at Silverstone.

Piastri tried to get McLaren to use team orders to rectify the situation, but the team chose to preserve their one-two status in the race without using team orders.

McLaren has managed the situation well, but now they are comfortably ahead in the Constructors’ Championship, will we see things change? Speaking on the Beyond the Grid podcast, Alex Albon gives his view on the situation between the pair.

Alex Albon thinks McLaren will avoid ‘fireworks’ in title battle

Intra-team battles can often turn into bitter rivalries if they aren’t managed properly, and McLaren has a great history of that with Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, and Lewis Hamilton with Fernando Alonso.

With Norris and Piastri, McLaren has made clear guidelines for their drivers to adhere to when racing each other on track. This was evident at the Austrian GP, when Piastri was told that a late-braking move on Norris for the lead was too ‘marginal’ by the team over the radio.

Albon believes McLaren has done a good enough job at maintaining the status quo between their drivers without things getting too heated on track.

“I think [with] Lando and Oscar, the team are doing a very good job at managing that situation. I don’t believe there will be fireworks,” said Albon.

Alex Albon says Lando Norris now has confidence to push in McLaren

Piastri has looked like the title favourite for most of the first part of the season, but since McLaren made a crucial upgrade to Norris’ car in Canada, the Briton has been much closer in the races.

Albon believes that comes from the renewed confidence Norris now has that he did not have before the new parts arrived.

“Confidence and the ability to push the car and get the feeling that you want in the car. These are things which I think even Lando, you could take as a latest example, that he’s feeling more comfortable in the car recently and the performances come up,” said Albon.

“These things, sometimes the lap times, don’t really match the performance numbers that’s been given.”

Both Norris and Piastri will be given the new floor that McLaren tested at the British GP in Belgium, having been satisfied with their progress at Silverstone.