Lando Norris says he is facing the consequences of McLaren holding him accountable for his first-lap clash with team-mate Oscar Piastri at the Singapore Grand Prix.
Norris barged his way past Piastri with an ambitious move through the opening corners that was crucial in securing the final place on the podium behind George Russell and Max Verstappen - and taking three points out of Piastri's championship lead.
The stewards did not feel the need to take any action, and McLaren did not swap the cars mid-race despite protests from Piastri.
But it did promise Piastri a "detailed" review of the incident and, at Austin ahead of the US GP, we've learned that Norris was found to be at fault.
"Of course, there were talks. That was inevitable. The team held me accountable for what happened, which I think is fair," Norris explained.
"Then we made progress from there on understanding what the repercussions were for myself and to avoid something...let's say definitely avoid anything worse happening than what did.
"The last thing I want is something like that to happen to cause this kind of controversial talks after a race.
"And 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.
"It's been one of my strengths since coming into Formula 1, is avoiding contact in general and keeping myself in the race and those kind of things.
"I think 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 everyone else."
Norris said there were "consequences" after the crash, but would not go into detail about the nature of them.
One could wonder whether Norris has been given a warning or 'yellow card' that means repeating an offence like this in the future would result in a position swap or some element of McLaren punishment.
"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," Norris continued.
"So we want to avoid anything like we had in Singapore, but I think in the end the understanding is that it's racing and it's difficult to always be perfect. I didn't want what happened to happen. But I'm never going to let go of an opportunity.
"There was a gap and I went for it and what happened, happened. Nothing changes from how we go racing. It's just we and the team want to avoid those kind of things happening again.
"And simply for the reason was there was contact between two McLaren cars. Zak [Brown, McLaren CEO] and Andrea [Stella, McLaren team boss] doesn't want that to happen. And I think as team-mates we don't want that to happen.
"So of course, that's the reasoning for why I was held accountable."
Piastri satisfied with review
Piastri said the team held "very productive" discussions in the aftermath of Singapore.
"We're very clear on how we want to go racing as a team, and that includes going forward - and the incident we had in Singapore isn't how we want to go racing," Piastri said.
"Lando has taken responsibility for that, and so has the team. I think it's quite clear for us as a team, that how lap one unfolded wasn't how we want to go racing."
Piastri said he was "very happy that there's no favouritism or bias" within McLaren and said it will not change how he goes racing.
Asked if Norris taking responsibility meant that McLaren was wrong not to swap them, Piastri said: "In a live situation, it's very, very difficult to analyse that, and also assessing whether swapping would have been the right thing to do in that scenario is very tough.
"So we've sat through it and talked through it kind of out of the heat of the moment, and discussed what happened and with a few more points of data and stuff like that.
"I don't think you can really say what would have been fair to do in the race, but ultimately, the responsibility has been put on Lando after."
Piastri said "everything has had a justifiable reason" even if it is not immediately clear when the driver is in the cockpit, on why a decision has - or hasn't - been taken.
"I'm not expecting it to be redressed on track anytime or every time. But ultimately, we know how we're expected to go racing, and if we don't do that, there's consequences for that," Piastri said.
"It's clear to me, certainly, no, I don't think what happened was purposeful. I think it was just a slight misjudgement."
'Very little' to McLaren's rules
Norris also bristled at the suggestion of the impossibility of keeping things fair in an intra-team title fight, believing people are making a bigger thing of the so-called 'Papaya Rules' than necessary.
"Internally, it's pretty simple. [On the outside] you think there's these big amount of rules and all these things. There's not. There's very little. And it's very simple," Norris said.
"People like to talk about it a lot and bring it up a lot and say it's this and that. It's quite a small amount of things and it's very simple and stuff that I think we always understand. like Andrea says a lot of the time, we still always have the right to question it.
"We're never going to just go around because I think it's just a racing driver's mind and be happy to accept whatever the team wants to do or what they think is correct. Always from my side or Oscar's side, we're always going to question it, even if it is one-sided or not.
"I understand that a lot of people have different opinions and think maybe other things are correct, but I still stand by the fact that I think and I'm confident that Andrea and Oscar and all of us together are confident that our approach is better than other people's."
The Papaya Rules are often misconstrued as a detailed set of guidelines that cover every potential scenario between Norris and Piastri, but they are more of a shared ethos or framework of operating that McLaren has.
There is a very clear 'don't crash into your team-mate' understanding, and McLaren clearly feels Norris overstepped the line in Singapore, albeit not enough to have visible consequences - for now.
