Why the next McLaren collision might just be a matter of time – Ralf Schumacher has lit the fuse under an already tense McLaren garage, warning that if things carry on as they are, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri will inevitably make contact before the season is over. Speaking on Sky’s “Backstage Pit Lane” podcast, the former Formula 1 driver voiced what many in the paddock quietly suspect — that the team’s in-house title fight for the 2025 World Championship could boil over in the run to Abu Dhabi.
Hungary gave us a sneak preview. In the dying moments of the race, Piastri lunged at Norris but overcooked the brakes, coming perilously close to clattering the back of his teammate’s car.
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Near miss!
“It was more luck than judgement that they didn’t touch,” Schumacher remarked, adding that the near miss was a vivid illustration of the mounting pressure inside McLaren.
In his words, the more steam in the boiler, the more likely it is to blow. And if it does, we might well be treated to the sight of Zak Brown with steam coming out of his ears as two orange cars sit smouldering in the gravel.
Günther Steiner — never one to mince words — is in complete agreement. The former team boss told web.de that he thinks the first Norris-Piastri prang could happen “at any time”. Luck, he says, has already played an oversized role in keeping the carbon fibre intact. In his view, it’s not if, but when.
McLaren’s view from the pit wall
Zak Brown, however, isn’t exactly naïve about the risks. He freely admits that wheel-to-wheel scraps between his two drivers will produce the occasional coming together, and says the real test is how the team reacts in those moments. Canada was an early examination — Norris and Piastri touched in a fight for position, Norris came off worse and retired, Piastri soldiered on, and yet tempers didn’t flare.
Brown called Montreal a textbook case of crisis management, but he’s aware that future incidents might not be handled with the same calm.
With only nine points separating leader Piastri from second-placed Norris after 14 of the season’s 24 rounds, the McLaren boss refuses to impose team orders. He insists both drivers will be given equal opportunity to fight, even if it means a heightened risk of tangled carbon and bruised egos.
“May the best man win” is his stance — which, conveniently, is also the best marketing slogan a neutral could hope for.
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Steiner, to his credit, applauds this hands-off approach. He says making one of them a number two driver would kill motivation and drain the sport of its emotional punch. Besides, he points out, McLaren will probably secure the Constructors’ crown anyway, so why not let the sparks fly? It’s exactly the kind of unscripted theatre Formula 1 thrives on.
As for who’ll come out on top, Steiner’s money is firmly on Piastri. He rates the Australian as calmer, more consistent, and less prone to costly errors. Norris, in his view, still suffers from the occasional lapse in judgement — lapses that could prompt a desperate move at the wrong time. Schumacher, however, doubts Norris would deliberately risk the team’s result, especially after the Canadian GP taught him a rather painful lesson in braking points.
The ticking clock to 2026
Both pundits agree on one thing: 2025 might be the golden window for either man to clinch the drivers’ crown. With new technical regulations set to shake up the pecking order in 2026, there’s no guarantee McLaren will still be in this kind of form. Steiner sums it up neatly — win it now, and no one can ever take it from you.
What do you think, jury? Will the Norris-Piastri rivalry produce a spectacular clash before the year is out, or will McLaren’s tightrope act hold until the chequered flag in Abu Dhabi? Join the debate in our growing online F1 community at https://www.facebook.com/TheJudge13 — we’d love to hear your verdict.
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Yet denied a fresh contract of more than a year by Toto Wolff, Hamilton called his friend, John Elkann the president of the Ferrari group, before the ink was dry on his Mercedes deal. Lewis announced he was leaving Mercedes before a wheel had turned in anger for the 2024 season, but since joining the Scuderia his form has gone from bad to worse.
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