Piastri won’t blame teammate over Montreal collision

Ian Chadband | June 16, 2025

Oscar Piastri believes there were no “bad intentions” from his McLaren teammate Lando Norris, who caused the dramatic high-speed Canadian Grand Prix collision between the pair that’s only boosted the Australian’s F1 title hopes.

As George Russell delivered a brilliant pole-to-chequered flag drive to win from Max Verstappen in Montreal on Sunday, Norris crashed out of the race, taking all the blame for banging his car into the back of Piastri as they duelled dramatically for fourth place with just three laps left.

Going for a gap on the inside that simply wasn’t there in a bid to edge past the championship leader, the 320kph collision ended with Norris’s car stricken, its front suspension broken, and Piastri’s coming off relatively unscathed so he was able to complete the race in fourth place under the safety car.

Norris ended up saying sorry to Piastri after the race, with the Victorian graciously shaking his hand and accepting his apology – “that’s all right” – for a rash manoeuvre which could easily have sent them both spinning out of the race.

Instead, the calamity for a pointless Norris meant Piastri increased his championship lead over his teammate from 10 points to 22. Verstappen is 43 points adrift of the Aussie.

Norris accepted immediately he was in the wrong. “It is all my bad,” he said on the team radio. “All my fault. Unlucky. Stupid from me.”

Later, he added: “I take full blame and I want to apologise to my whole team and to Oscar for attempting something like that.”

The ever cool Piastri himself shrugged it all off, saying he thought it was a “fair” attempt.

“I don’t think there were any bad intentions involved. I think it was just unfortunate really. I will go and have a look, obviously,” he added.

“Lando made quite a large move into turn 10. I held my own into the chicane and it was definitely a tough battle, but a clean one up until that point.”

A duel like this, and a probable collision, was first predicted back in April by McLaren boss Zak Brown, but Piastri said he hoped they’d still be allowed to go head-to-head again.

“We’re fighting for a world championship and very thankful to the team that they allow us to race,” said the Aussie. “I don’t expect this to change anything in terms of that. We’ll keep going racing until the end.”

Kimi Antonelli was a spectacular third – earning his first podium finish at just 18 – to complete Mercedes’ big afternoon, but the balance of power in the McLaren camp has once more shifted significantly in Piastri’s favour with his points advantage now almost an entire race’s worth.

Piastri was pipped from third on the grid at the start by the bravura Antonelli and had a rare difficult outing outside the top three.

Norris, who had started from seventh on a different strategy on hard tyres that allowed him to run longer in the race, did well to get himself into position to challenge Piastri with 11 laps left.

It was a terrific duel, as Norris first dipped underneath Piastri at the hairpin only for Piastri to draw back alongside him into the final chicane and regain the position before the English driver’s over ambitious swoop down the inside.

Behind Piastri, Ferrari pair Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were fifth and sixth. Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg, Haas’ Esteban Ocon and Williams’ Carlos Sainz Jr. rounded out the top 10.

Piastri certainly wasn’t satisfied, despite his increased lead. “For me, this weekend wasn’t good enough,” he said. “And it’s still far, far too early to think that’s a comfortable advantage or anything like that.”