Clashes between teammates are a team principal’s worst nightmare and can immediately ruin a race weekend.
Last season’s crash between Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly ended both of their chances of scoring points for Alpine and fractured a relationship that was already strained.
Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg had a similar collision in Spain that handed Max Verstappen his first Formula 1 victory on his Red Bull debut.
So far this season, Ocon and Gasly touched in Japan during the second restart and Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc had a feisty battle in China.
However, McLaren team principal Zak Brown – speaking on the Drive to Wynn Podcast – believes it’s only a matter of time before his drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri tangle.
The young drivers are two of the most competitive on the grid right now although Norris currently has the upper hand over his less experienced teammate.
With every passing race, Piastri is gaining more and more experience and after another Grand Prix at a new track for the Australian in Shanghai, he heads to Miami where the car is a lot more competitive than it was 12 months ago.
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Zak Brown expects McLaren drivers Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris to tangle
When Oscar Piastri first arrived at McLaren at the start of last season, the drivers were fighting each other just to get out of Q1.
It was only when a mid-season upgrade package arrived that the pair were able to regularly score points.
Lando Norris finished with more than double the points of the Australian and was a regular feature on the podium in the final third of the campaign.
Piastri joined him on the rostrum in Japan and Qatar but did manage one feat that his British teammate has yet to achieve.
After a superb Sprint qualifying session in Lusail, Piastri took the chequered flag in the Sprint Race ahead of Norris and even Max Verstappen.
While it doesn’t count as an official Grand Prix victory, it’s the one accolade Piastri has to his name in F1 that Norris is yet to achieve and Brown will hope that if they ever end up battling each other for that coveted race win that they don’t tangle.
However, he’s anticipating that eventually the pair will end up coming to blows and is already putting measures in place for when it happens.
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Zak Brown anticipating intense McLaren tussles this season
Talking about his drivers, Brown said: “We know we’ve got two competitive animals that there is going to come a day where they’re going to make a big pass on one or the other and maybe touch wheels.
“So, I think if they have a good grounding of a relationship going in and then if they are to tangle which in my mind it’s a matter of when not if then there’s good rules of engagement, don’t let the media draw you in to a media fight because they like a good controversy.
“Let’s just keep our heads cool, no one’s done anything intentionally, we’ll sort everything out.
“So, I’m confident we can manage our two drivers as competitive as they are, in a very healthy way.”
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If Piastri and Norris do end up in a tangle, Brown will hope it doesn’t cost either driver their race.
McLaren are looking like the third-fastest team on the grid this season, although the race in China showed that on his day Lando Norris can even beat Sergio Perez’s Red Bull.
That level of performance is going to be track-specific at this stage but it’s very encouraging for the rest of their campaign.
The post ‘When not if’: 52-year-old team principal says his two drivers are going to ‘tangle’ at some point this season appeared first on F1 Oversteer.