Norris walks back radio outburst after Piastri's 'fair' move forced him onto the grass at Monza

Lando Norris has backed down from his fiery radio complaint about Oscar Piastri, conceding that his McLaren team-mate acted fairly during their wheel-to-wheel battle in the closing laps of the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.

The two papaya cars spent the final stages of the 53-lap race locked in a tense fight for fourth position. Norris first passed Piastri on lap 48, only for the Australian to reclaim the place a lap later. With three laps remaining, Norris attacked again into Monza’s second chicane, but Piastri covered the inside line. Norris pressed on regardless, squeezing through a narrowing gap on the left — and in doing so dipped two wheels onto the grass, prompting him to accuse Piastri over the radio of pushing him off the circuit.

After the chequered flag, however, Norris was quick to revise that verdict. “No, it was okay,” he said. “I think it’s just the perception of when you’re in the car, when someone’s kind of opening the gap a bit and then kind of goes straight. You get that perception when you’re going at 200 miles an hour, so that’s all.”

“I think what he did was fair, so it’s just when you’re in the moment and you’re half on the grass, you realise how quickly things can end pretty badly — just in the heat of the moment. But no, from that side it was fine and it was a good battle and a good result from a tough race.”

The McLaren pit wall intervened during the final lap, instructing both drivers to keep it clean. Norris ultimately timed his decisive move into the Variante Ascari to perfection, managing his battery levels by running in Piastri’s slipstream before making the pass stick. Piastri attempted to hit back on the run to the line but was forced to correct a significant slide exiting the Parabolica, and the two cars crossed the finish line in formation — Norris fourth, Piastri fifth.

Piastri was philosophical about the exchange. “It was a lot of back and forth and the last lap, you never really know what to do with the energy,” he said. “I think we went for different strategies with that and he got past, and I thought I’d have a chance to get back past again but ultimately I just didn’t quite get there.”

The episode underlines the increasingly competitive dynamic between McLaren’s two drivers as the championship battle intensifies, with the team forced to balance internal harmony against the ambitions of two drivers capable of racing each other hard.