Norris, Piastri bring friendly F1 rivalry to Norris’ home race
As Norris heads to his home race at Silverstone, he's hoping fans at the British Grand Prix show his Australian teammate some love, too.
PTI
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McLaren driver Oscar Piastri of Australia congratulates the victory to McLaren driver Lando Norris (AP)
Spielberg,
30 June
The history of Formula 1 shows how vying for the title can turn
the friendliest of teammates into bitter rivals. But so far, Oscar Piastri and
Lando Norris are making it work at McLaren.
As
Norris heads to his home race at Silverstone, he's hoping fans at the British Grand Prix show his Australian teammate some love, too.
“The
British fans are normally very accepting for all of us and especially for us as
McLaren. So I think the first point should be for the fans to embrace everyone
and support everyone,” Norris said after his win at Sunday's Austrian Grand
Prix when asked if there might be a hostile reception for Piastri.
Nine
years ago, one of F1's most famous teammate rivalries came into focus at the
Austrian Grand Prix, when childhood friends-turned-Mercedes teammates Lewis
Hamilton and Nico Rosberg collided on the last lap, one more incident in a
relationship which had long been rocky.
Two apologies
There
have been recent incidents in Norris' and Piastri's time together which
potentially may have soured the relationship between other drivers.
In
Canada, Norris clipped the back of Piastri's car on 15 June and hit the wall.
Norris apologised.
On
Sunday in Austria, Piastri attempted an over-optimistic lunge and narrowly
missed hitting Norris. Piastri apologized.
“We
both want to race hard and race fair, and it goes both ways,” Norris said
Sunday.
“(The
incident in Canada is) something I wish never happened but it was nice that we
could go out and have a good battle (in Austria) and push things to the
limits," he said. "There were still some close moments, but nothing
that was hopefully something that would make Andrea (Stella, McLaren's team
principal) or the pit wall sweat too much.”
Welcome to Silverstone
In
his third year with Britain-based McLaren, Piastri has some warm memories of
the Silverstone crowd, but he's never been there before as a championship
leader whose closest rival is the home hero.
“A
couple of years ago they were chanting my name in the crowd, so that was
unexpected. I'm not sure I'll quite get that again, which is fair enough,”
Piastri said. “Obviously I'm expecting there to be a lot more Lando fans than
me' fans, but that's fair. It's it's his home race as well, so I think it'll be
fine.”
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