Coulthard’s ‘fair has to be fair’ verdict in McLaren title fight

David Coulthard has defended Oscar Piastri’s call for McLaren to intervene in Singapore, saying “fair has to be fair”.

Piastri was irate with Lando Norris and McLaren at the Singapore Grand Prix when the Briton clattered into him as Norris tried to avoid crashing into Max Verstappen as they battled for position through Turn 3 on the opening lap.

David Coulthard: The sensitivity of a race driver is such that fair has to be fair

Although Norris’ front wing endplate was broken, he grabbed third place ahead of Piastri, and that’s how they finished the grand prix with Norris taking three points out of Piastri’s lead in the Drivers’ Championship.

The Australian was not happy in the moment and felt McLaren should intervene.

Piastri: “Yeah, I mean that wasn’t very team like.”

Piastri: “So, are we cool with Lando just barging me out of the way? What’s the go there?”

Tom Stallard: “As a team, we see Lando had to avoid Verstappen, so we won’t take any action during the race. We can review further afterwards.”

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

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

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

More on Oscar Piastri and McLaren in Singapore

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The collision raised eyebrows given McLaren’s stance on its papaya regulations, which set out the team’s expectations for what Piastri and Norris go wheel-to-wheel.

CEO Zak Brown explained it last year after the Italian Grand Prix: “Race each other respectfully. Give each other enough room and don’t touch each other.”

Piastri had an even simpler explanation: “It is literally one rule: don’t crash into each other.”

That, however, went out of the window at the Marina Bay circuit and yet, even though Norris was the one who caused the collision, McLaren did not intervene.

Coulthard says he understands why Piastri was smarting.

“You can understand, actually,” he told Channel 4 during commentary, “why you’ve got Oscar going, ‘hold on a minute, I’ve just been barged wide by my teammate’.”

“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?”

And being fair is something that every driver wants from their team, Coulthard recalling his time at McLaren alongside Mika Hakkinen when he would be ordered to move over for the Finn but Hakkinen never had to return the favour.

“Now, I don’t want to open all wounds,” Coulthard continued, “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.”

Piastri was more pragmatic when he spoke with the media after the race and refused to be drawn too far into the topic.

“I need to look more at the replays to know exactly what happened,” Piastri said. “The main thing is, the two cars coming together, it’s never what we want. So I’ll go and have a look at it in more detail, and come to my conclusion.

“I thought in the moment, you know, obviously, it’s the first lap, tensions are high… We’re obviously encouraged to share our views on what happened, and I did that, and I’m sure we’ll discuss.”

Read next: Oscar Piastri linked with shock McLaren exit: Why on earth would he do that?