Oscar Piastri feeling Lando Norris ‘favouritism’ as McLaren under microscope

Repeatedly losing out in McLaren’s decision, Jolyon Palmer says he can understand why Oscar Piastri may feel aggrieved and question whether there is a “level of favouritism towards” his teammate Lando Norris.

Piastri’s lead in the Drivers’ standings was reduced to 22 points at the Singapore Grand Prix where Norris finished ahead of the Australian driver after barging, Piastri’s description, his way through on the opening lap.

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Norris made an incredible start from fifth on the grid but found himself tangling with Max Verstappen, which prompted him to move to the right where he hit his teammate.

Piastri wasn’t impressed and believed McLaren would take action given the number one rule in the team’s much-lauded papaya rules is don’t crash into your teammate. McLaren, though, opted to do nothing.

It’s not only led to debate about McLaren’s papaya regulations and whether the team’s attempt at fairness has created more problems, but it’s also raised questions of bias.

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Although Piastri toed the party line after the Marina Bay race, talking about being “in the moment” and that the team will “discuss” it, former F1 driver Palmer says he can understand why the Australian may feel aggrieved.

“If you imagine it from Oscar’s point of view,” he told the F1 Nation podcast, “I still don’t think in any of these moments, engagement issues, he’s ever come out favourably.

“I’m just thinking again, top of my head stuff, but you’ve got the Silverstone one, he got a penalty, felt it was harsh, asked for the team to swap back if they thought it was harsh. They would have done, had it been Max they would have thought it was an outrageous penalty. But because it was between the two McLarens, they kept the order. Lando wins.

“You’ve then got the Budapest strategy, where Oscar was the lead driver, kind of got a bit done by his own team on strategy there with Lando winning the race.

“You’ve got Monza, where he’s actually had to give up a position. And then you’ve got Singapore, where Lando has wheel-banged his way through and not had the swap around.

“I know, in all of this, you’ve got Lando’s lost points with a DNF in Zandvoort. Lando’s had sort of slower pit stops, more on average, even if Oscar got one in Singapore.

“But it must be a little bit grating for Oscar to think, ‘flipping hell, can I just have one rub of the green here in terms of the teammate dynamics?’

“I think as a driver, you start to wonder if there’s a level of favouritism towards the other driver. It’s just natural. You get paranoid, you’re in a title fight, and I wonder if that’s where we’re at with him a little bit.”

McLaren warned: Trying to get involved just creates problems

Former Ferrari and Williams man Rob Smedley reckons McLaren has only added to the problems in the title fight by trying to get involved.

In a season in which it could be Piastri versus Norris for a debut World title for either driver, Smedley says trying to play the fairness card rather than just let things play out as they would on track only creates more issues.

“I’ve been in this situation before, when you’re trying to manage the fairness between the drivers,” said the Briton. “What happens in an F1 race is, there’s always a butterfly effect, right?

“So if you take the Monza situation, it was a bad pit stop. But then before that, if you remember, they had swapped the drivers in terms of the natural order in which they were going to pit and before that, something else happened.

“And when you’re the driver, the driver is always in a situation where they pick that part of that whole chain of effects and say, ‘Well, this is the bit that’s affected me, and this is the bit that’s affected me badly’.

“Quite often you’ll find a driver might make a bad choice in qualifying, and they put themselves on the back foot in the race, and then something will happen down the line where they choose to pick something that is unfair for them.

“And I think that’s why, when it comes to what goes on on the track, whether it’s the pit stops themselves, or the natural order of sometimes when you have to swap which driver comes in first, or you have to favour one driver over another because if something’s happened in the race, that’s just the way that these things play out.

“You can’t pick an isolated incident and say, this is fair or this is unfair.

“And I think, McLaren did the right thing in Singapore. You know, the two drivers battled hard into the first corner. I agree it was great to see Lando showing a bit of aggression, showing that he wanted it because if he’s going to have a chance to the World Championship, he’s got to get in there. The team can’t interfere on that.

“It was just the two guys racing hard together. Fair, unfair, I don’t know. It’s fair for someone. It’s unfair for somebody else.

“Get on with it. And I think that’s the bit where, once the lights go off, the teams, you’ve got your papaya rules, or rules of engagement, as they would be in any other team, and once the lights are off, it’s kind of like whatever happens you just have to get on with and deal with, and whatever the natural order is at the end, that’s the natural order.

“Trying to get involved in it, in the middle of it, it just creates problems, and it just creates angst, and it just creates a precedent that then one driver or another driver will come back and say, this happened there three years ago so why are you now doing something different?”

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