Norris facing 'consequences' for Piastri collision

Lando Norris says he will face "consequences" for his first-lap collision with McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri at the Singapore Grand Prix.

The Briton collided with Piastri at Turn Three in Marina Bay after running into the back of Red Bull's Max Verstappen and damaging his front wing.

Norris went on to finish third with Piastri fourth in the race on 5 October.

The 25-year-old - who trails Piastri by 22 points with six races to go, starting at this weekend's United States Grand Prix - said: "The team held me accountable for what happened, which I think is fair."

He added: "Then we made progress from there on understanding what the repercussions were for myself, to avoid anything happening worse than what did."

Neither Norris nor McLaren were willing to say what the consequences for him would be.

Norris said: "The last thing I want is something like that to happen. To cause this kind of controversial talks after a race.

"At the same time, I put just as much risk on me putting myself out of the race as I do whoever I'm racing against. Whether it's Oscar or anyone else. So it's clearly something I want to avoid."

After the collision, Piastri asked on the team radio whether the team were "cool with Lando barging me out of the way" but McLaren took no action during the race.

The framework which McLaren set for acceptable conduct when their drivers race with each other is founded on one basic principle - to not crash with your team-mate.

Piastri said the incident was "not how we want to go racing".

The Australian added: "Lando's taken responsibility for that and so has the team."

Norris said: "The simple answer is there was contact between the two cars. And that's something that we always want to avoid. The rule is to not crash with each other.

"This wasn't a crash. It was something much smaller. But we still don't even want to get it to that point. Because it causes these kind of things. And that's never a good thing.

"One thing we've always done good as a team is using and progressing with the framework that we have, to allow both of us as drivers to trust each other and the team. And that's a lot of the reason for why we're a stronger team than anyone else."

Red Bull's Max Verstappen, who is 63 points behind Piastri in the championship but has won two of the past three races and finished second in the other, was asked in a news conference on Thursday in Austin whether he believed McLaren were favouring Norris.

He replied: "Absolutely."

He laughed, and then said: "Yep."

Leaving the news conference, he said off-microphone: "Well, there's a headline."

BBC Sport sought clarification from Verstappen as to whether he had been joking, and he said through a PR person that he had been.

In answer to the same favouritism question, Verstappen added: "I honestly don't know. I don't care also. It has nothing to do with me. They do whatever they think is right and they are doing a very good job of it being so quick.

"For me, the most important thing is we maximise our potential and as long as we do that it is in our control."

Piastri said: "I'm very happy that there's no favouritism or bias."

United States Grand Prix

17-19 October, with race from 20:00 BST on Sunday

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