McLaren’s Zak Brown: Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri collision ‘will happen again’

McLaren CEO Zak Brown believes another collision between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri is a matter of “when, not if”, although he remains confident his team is equipped to deal with such a scenario.

Piastri leads Norris by 15 points at the top of the drivers’ standings ahead of the midway point of the season at this weekend’s British Grand Prix.

The pair collided while fighting for fourth place at the Canadian Grand Prix after a misjudgement by Norris for which the British driver took the blame.

They battled over the lead at last weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix and avoided contact, although Piastri was told that one of his attempts to pass was “too marginal” as he locked a front tyre and narrowly avoided the rear of Norris

“I don’t think you can get any two racing drivers, teammates or not, who are going to be racing each other as closely as they are,” Brown told ESPN. “Whether it’s for first and second or 10th and 11th — they’re all on the limit and mistakes happen, so it’s going to happen again.”

“It’s OK, we know it, it’s racing. To sit here and say our cars are never going to touch another race car teammate or not is unrealistic, but that comes down to the integrity in which we race, the communication that we have the respect we have for each other.

“So when it happens again, not if, it’ll be just like you saw in Montreal. We’ll talk it through, someone will put up their hand, whatever the case may be, and we move on and we go racing again. It certainly wouldn’t have been anything intentional.”

Brown believes the personalities of the two drivers will be a key factor in the title race remaining harmonious even if the cars collide on track.

“I think in this instance it’s the two drivers that we have,” he added. “You know Oscar and Lando are first-class individuals. They’ve got a tremendous amount of respect for each other. They’ve got a tremendous amount of respect for the team.”

“They want to race fairly, equally and may the best man win, and that’s how they want to win. They don’t want to have a one car team or one supporting, and at the same time I think they’re very proud of how they race.

“So I don’t anticipate them racing anything other than very hard and cleanly. That doesn’t mean mistakes can’t happen as we’ve seen they have in the past and they will in the future, but I have no doubt that they want to win it cleanly and I’m excited for that,” Brown said.

Much has been made of the different off-track approaches from the McLaren drivers, with Norris openly speaking about his struggles, while Piastri has typically preferred to do his talking on the track. Brown believes the different characters of the drivers’ helps the team manage the situation.

“I think it benefits [us],” he said. “Everyone’s their own individual I think it’s great, I think that’s what makes the chemistry between them really good “If you get two people that are too like-minded then maybe that’s not the ideal scenario, but having the two of them having different personalities I think makes it fun.

“Fun is an important part of going motor racing and being a racing team where everyone thinks as one, and I think their personalities are very complimentary and it’s enjoyable working with both of them.”