Zak Brown defends decision to keep details of Lando Norris’ ‘repercussions’ private

McLaren CEO Zak Brown has defended the decision not to make details of Lando Norris’ ‘consequence’ public, after his collision with team mate Oscar Piastri at the Singapore Grand Prix.

In the opening corners of the Marina Bay race, Norris made contact with the rear of Max Verstappen’s Red Bull, before bouncing into Piastri’s McLaren. With the Briton having gained a position over his team mate, Piastri requested that the places be reversed and voiced his unhappiness over the radio, having commented “that wasn’t very teamlike” before asking: “So, are we cool with Lando just barging me out of the way?”

Ahead of the United States Grand Prix weekend, Norris admitted to facing “repercussions until the end of the season” over the incident, while Team Principal Andrea Stella explained the consequences had been accepted by both drivers.

With questions continuing over the nature of the repercussions, Brown was quizzed during Friday’s press conference in Austin as to why he and the team did not feel the need to reveal what they entailed.

“We’re racing against nine other teams, and I don’t think you want to necessarily show your hand on how you go motor racing,” he explained. “We try to be as transparent as possible, but there’s a reason why engineering debriefs are only with teams, otherwise you start inviting other teams in.

“I think that’s the best we can do. We try to be as transparent as possible in saying that some action has been taken, so I think that has been very transparent.

“But at the end of the day, we’re at a sporting event and we can’t necessarily tell everyone everything, no different than our set up sheets aren’t very public.”

‘Papaya Rules’ – the code of conduct Piastri and Norris abide by on the racing track – have become a growing talking point as the pair engage in their championship battle, with Brown conceding the policy has “taken on a bit of a life of its own”.

He added: “We just want to make sure that while they’re racing hard, they don’t come together because that puts them at risk, that puts the team at risk, so we agreed with them in the off-season how we would handle certain situations.

“It was a pretty minor incident at the start of a Grand Prix. It’s pretty chaotic [in those moments], it was a damp track, it clearly wasn’t intentional, and so we worked through with them different consequences for different situations. It was a pretty minor situation, so it’s a pretty minor consequence.”

Pressed again to share details of the ‘consequence’ suffered by Norris, Brown said: “No, we don’t want to get into that. I think that’s private business between us.

“I know everyone is interested to know, but both drivers are in a great place and we just want to be able to set them up to be able to continue to race each other hard.”