It's finally happened: McLaren's 2025 Formula 1 title rival team-mates Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri collided in the Canadian Grand Prix.
Norris accepted full blame for the incident, but just how bad a mistake is this? And what does it mean for McLaren and this year's title fight?
Our team have their say:
McLaren's 'ideal' first driver clash
Scott Mitchell-Malm
There's no good way for two team-mates to collide but that might be the ideal first Norris/Piastri clash as far as McLaren's concerned.
McLaren has been very wary of the potential for an incident between its drivers since a few flashpoints last year caused a lot of scrutiny and the occasional moment of tension for the team.
And so McLaren has anticipated how it will need to manage such a situation - to the point of proactively talking about it in advance. Remember Zak Brown and Andrea Stella both saying it's a matter of when they have an accident, not if? That's a sign of trying to control what they can in a situation that is largely out of their hands.
The McLaren argument was that the sooner, the better, because then it would be out there. The tension of a clash happening would be gone and McLaren could demonstrate its principles rather than just talking the talk. You never know how your drivers will actually react until they are in the situation.
Well, this isn't one where McLaren has to do much. It's so one-sided, so obviously Norris's fault, that there is nothing tense about having to handle the two. Norris has taken a lot of the sting out of it with an immediately apologetic radio message, too.
McLaren knew this was coming. And this is about as gentle as it could have been.
Too many question marks over Norris
Matt Beer
I really admire Norris for immediately taking responsibility and apologising for this clash. But when is he going to stop giving the world reason to question his racecraft, judgement and consistency?
Another weekend when he was generally the fastest McLaren driver, yet he blows Q3, has to come from behind, then fires himself into the pitwall with a massive wheel-to-wheel misjudgement that could've wiped both cars out.
It's all too clumsy, too panicky. It makes it so hard to imagine him coming out on top of this world championship fight.
McLaren can't give its drivers this much freedom
Gary Anderson
Well, we all knew it was going to happen the only question was when?
In this case, it didn’t really need to happen as it wasn’t for big points. When it’s not going your way - which it wasn’t for McLaren in Montreal - it’s always important to take home as many points as possible.
At least Norris ended up taking the rap for it. He went for a gap that wasn’t really there so fair play to him for owning up.
However it will change the state of play between them for the future. Now McLaren knows it can’t simply leave it in the drivers' hands. The team needs to control these situations otherwise things like this will simply fester.
In the constructors', that’s 40 points for Mercedes, 18 for Red Bull and 12 for McLaren. For the first time this season, that’s a step backwards.
Piastri has rattled Norris
Samarth Kanal
Norris was lucky this incident didn’t have bigger ramifications; Piastri could have had worse damage.
But this crash shows that Norris is struggling against a team-mate who’s got the better of him so many times this season.
That was an unnecessary move, given Norris is in a championship fight and he was up against his team-mate, and there wasn’t even a gap there.
Piastri’s just been so much calmer and consistent than Norris - and it feels like the Briton is feeling the pressure now. He apologised for the crash, which is sporting, but Norris’s recent demeanour has been sheepish.
I fear that if Norris doesn’t start believing he’s better than Piastri, he just won’t be.
...but Norris was faster
Josh Suttill
It's absolutely right to say Norris's execution isn't on Piastri's level. There are far more mistakes in both qualifying and in the heat of battle in the races.
That has to tip the title fight in Piastri's favour right now, but...Norris really looked like the quicker McLaren driver today.
His medium middle stint gave him a clear advantage over Piastri, but when they were both on hards in the final stint, it was Norris who had the pace to be all over the back of Piastri - just without the racecraft to utilise it.
That has to be the glimmer of hope that Norris clings to. The same pace advantage that helped him to victory in Monaco, and one that can still be a path to the title. It's a lot harder to suddenly become faster than your team-mate than to smooth out your execution - even if the latter continues to elude Norris.
