David Coulthard thinks Oscar Piastri made one ‘compelling argument’ to McLaren after Lando Norris shunt

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McLaren will be wondering how long they can guarantee cohesion between their two drivers after the Singapore Grand Prix.

Lando Norris recorded yet another podium that guaranteed McLaren won the constructors’ championship for the second consecutive season.

He was followed home by Oscar Piastri in fourth, but how they found themselves in those positions ended up being the biggest talking point of the race.

Both drivers made brilliant starts at the Singapore Grand Prix, but when Piastri found himself forced to try and go around Max Verstappen as he caught him so quickly, that opened up a gap for Norris.

The British driver made contact with both of his rivals before moving up to third, leaving Piastri incensed that Norris had broken the only rule that existed between the McLaren teammates: no contact.

Fans praised Norris for immediately apologising the last time both drivers crashed at the Canadian Grand Prix, but there was no sense that he was sorry this time around.

Piastri switched up his strategy at this point, trying to preserve his tyre life to undercut his teammate, but an early Charles Leclerc pit stop – followed by a slow stop when he changed tyres – scuppered his race.

After the race, Piastri seemed isolated from his McLaren team despite their championship victory, and former McLaren driver David Coulthard believes he made one point over the team radio that team principal Andrea Stella should have taken more seriously.

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David Coulthard says Oscar Piastri made a ‘compelling argument’ during the Singapore Grand Prix

Coulthard was commentating for Channel 4 at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, and after watching a replay of the incident, he said: “You can understand, actually, from that angle, why you’ve got Oscar going, hold on a minute, I’ve just been barged wide by my teammate.”

Piastri’s race engineer came on the team radio and said: “No further action from the stewards. As a team, we can see that Lando has to avoid Verstappen. So we won’t take any action during the race. We can review further afterwards.”

Piastri replied: “Mate, that’s not fair, I’m sorry, that’s not fair.”

Tom Stallard continued: “Oscar, we’ll have the opportunity to review together afterwards, focus on this race.”

Piastri explained: “Yeah, but if he has to avoid another car by crushing it for his teammate, then that’s a pretty s— job of avoiding.”

In response to this, Coulthard admitted: “You know what? He puts forward a compelling argument! No further words needed.

“This is what I highlighted earlier in the year. You can only start meddling to a certain degree, because at what point does it become unfair?

“Now, I don’t want to open all wounds, but when I moved over for Mika Hakkinen a couple of times, the return I got was he moves over from third, and when I was running in fourth, and I got a third place, I never got a win back.”

“The sensitivity of a race driver is such that fair has to be fair.”

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Andrea Stella addresses Oscar Piastri’s Singapore Grand Prix concerns

Team principal Stella knows that he needs to protect the relationship between Norris, Piastri and the team even though the constructors’ championship is now won.

Many people would love to see the pair be unleashed and go wheel-to-wheel each week, but there are two reasons why they can’t do that.

Firstly, Verstappen is still lurking in the background, and Red Bull’s recent improvement will concern McLaren.

Additionally, McLaren want this partnership to last for some time, and if everything blows up in the next six races, then Stella and Zak Brown might suddenly need to find another driver.

Talking about the incident after the race, Stella explained to Sky Sports F1: “First of all, we have to put everything into perspective. It’s comments from a driver in an F1 car, there’s the heat of the moment.

“The information that is available is just his point of view, and this is Lando moving on to him.

“I think, as usual, we have good conversations, we will build from there and come back stronger.

“This has been the whole process, as we said before, on building together a strong team, which the drivers are a great foundational part.”