Lando Norris made ‘dangerous’ Oscar Piastri accusation in tense McLaren battle

Lando Norris has backtracked on his claim that Oscar Piastri’s defence at the Italian Grand Prix was “dangerous”, saying it was a comment made in the heat of the moment.

Norris and Piastri finished fourth and fifth at Monza after fireworks between the teammates in the closing laps.

Lando Norris walks back ‘dangerous’ Oscar Piastri defence claim

Scrapping for position in a Grand Prix of yo-yo racing that was largely dependent on the slipstream and energy deployment, Piastri had Norris locked to his rear wing.

Lining up an overtake into Turn 4 on the penultimate lap, Piastri defended hard, which led to Norris putting two wheels on the grass.

“He pushed me off,” complained the reigning world champion. “That was very dangerous. He moved back at me after I went to the inside.”

Piastri’s race engineer Tom Stallard told the Australian to keep it “clean”.

Norris again attacked Piastri on the final lap, and this time made it stick. He took the chequered flag in fourth place, two-tenths ahead of his teammate.

Norris, speaking to PlanetF1.com and other accredited media after the race, walked back his initial radio complaint.

“No, it was okay,” he said of his late-race battle with his teammate.

“I just need to review things, but it’s just the perception of when you’re in the car, when someone’s opening the gap a bit and then goes straight.

“You get that perception when you’re going at 200 miles per hour. So that’s all.

“I think what he did was fair.

“It’s just when you’re in the moment, and you’re half on the grass, you don’t realise how quickly things can end pretty badly.

“Just in the heat of the moment, but it was fine, and it was a good battle. A good result from a tough race.”

Ass for Piastri, he believes energy deployment ultimately led to his defeat to Norris on the final lap.

“It was a good battle. A lot of back and forth,” said the Australian.

“The last lap, you never really know what to do with the energy, and I think we went for different strategies with that, and he got past.

“I thought I’d have a chance to get back past again, but ultimately I just didn’t quite get there.

“So yeah, it was always a bit of a gamble with these cars, but yeah, I definitely know for next time what I would do different.”

Italian Grand Prix analysis

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McLaren scored 22 points at Monza, closing the gap to Ferrari in second place to 59 points.

Norris was asked if McLaren was happy with fourth and fifth given the team’s pre-Monza predictions that the track would not suit the MCL40.

“I think so,” said the Briton.

“I think we’ve seen in the past races, like Red Bull Ring, that the Red Bull can be very fast in those type of circuits with good top speeds and stuff, and that was again proven today. And they were better than us.

“But it was clear that the Mercedes are still in a league of their own compared to us.

“So you know, we won by bigger margins over the last few races, which they were still fighting for good points at those times, and we were not even close to fighting for our top two today. So just frustrating.

“But we said it before the weekend, and I think we’ve seen what our expectation was, and we still have work to do, which we knew. So yeah, it’s nothing that’s a surprise.

“We just need to really work on kind of the slower, medium-speed corners, the stability of the car, which is just not good enough, and some straight-line speed. If we can sort that, then yeah, a lot of stuff is sorted.”

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

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