McLaren secured the 2025 Formula 1 constructors' championship in the Singapore Grand Prix but the celebrations will be dampened after a recalcitrant Oscar Piastri fumed at being hit by team-mate Lando Norris on lap one of a race won by Mercedes' George Russell.
Norris got a great start from fifth and went around the outside through Turn 2 to have the inside line on Piastri into Turn 3.
But Norris braked so late that he actually hit second-placed Max Verstappen in front and then bumped into Piastri as well.
"So are we cool with Lando just barging me out of the way or...?" Piastri asked McLaren.
The stewards cleared Norris of wrongdoing and when McLaren did the same after his own investigation, Piastri made his feelings known.
"Mate that’s not fair. I'm sorry, that's not fair," he said, adding: "If he has to avoid another car by crashing into his team-mate that's a pretty s*** job of avoiding."
Even if McLaren wanted to swap them around, Norris was clearly the stronger of the two in the first stint, with Norris electing to ignore Verstappen's earlier stop - the Red Bull started on used softs - to stay out seven laps longer on the medium.
He also refused the team's request to let Piastri have the undercut to cover off Leclerc, a further needle between the two McLaren stars.
With Verstappen's earlier stop, the gap ballooned from just over a second to five by the time both had pitted, but the offset ensured Norris had fresher tyres to attack with.
Initially, Verstappen looked the most comfortable on the hards of the top three, closing what had been an almost 10-second gap to Russell down to three seconds just past the halfway point.
But a massive lockup on lap 36 of 62 at Turn 14 cost Verstappen dearly, and then a couple of laps later he reportedly went off unsighted at Turn 2, giving Russell a five-second lead and allowing Norris to close to within two seconds.
"The rear is like a handbrake, please help," begged Verstappen.
As the leaders caught traffic inside the last 20 laps, Norris got within DRS range of Verstappen - but Verstappen also picked up DRS from the cars he was lapping, negating its impact for Norris.
Lap after lap Norris clipped at Verstappen's heels but could not trip him up, a typically defiant Verstappen drive against the odds.
But Russell was the cool and assured winner for the second time this year after his Canadian GP win in June, with this triumph built on an excellent first stint gapping Verstappen at a track Russell has not always enjoyed or excelled on.
Verstappen in second came home ahead of Norris and Piastri, stealing a few more points back in the drivers' championship to maintain his own slim hopes.
Piastri now leads Norris by 22 points, with Verstappen 63 behind in third.
Charles Leclerc had passed Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Antonelli at the start, but Antonelli went four laps longer in the first stint and made the most of that to grab fifth from Leclerc with under 10 laps to go.
That made things complicated for Ferrari, because it pitted Hamilton for softs inside the final 15 laps and he was so quick he caught back up to his rivals, passing Leclerc on lap 57.
He still had 2.8s to go to catch Antonelli but did so, before going off at Turn 16 with brake issues, so he handed sixth back to Leclerc then faded - only just holding on to seventh ahead of Fernando Alonso.
But he lost that position to Alonso after the race, having picked up a five-second time penalty post-race for track limits abuse.
Aston Martin driver Alonso had been eighth before any pitstops started but trouble with the front right wheelgun sent him back to 15th after he'd stopped. "If you speak to me every lap I will disconnect the radio," said Alonso shortly after.
However, he had an epic battle with Isack Hadjar - also unlucky after lap one contact with Ollie Bearman and then an engine issue costing him a reported three-to-four tenths a lap - for 12th just past the halfway mark, then got past Bearman too.
Bearman took ninth ahead of a wonderful drive from Sainz, who did an absolutely gobsmacking 49 laps on the medium and then charged through the pack on softs in the final stint to steal the last point from a luckless Hadjar.
