McLaren make embarrassing Lando Norris U-Turn in title race twist

Ahead of the Mexican Grand Prix weekend, McLaren have made an embarrassing U-turn regarding Lando Norris' 'repercussions'.

Norris was said to have been carrying some 'repercussions' for last weekend's United States Grand Prix following a move on team-mate Oscar Piastri at the Singapore GP, with Zak Brown confirming that it was a minor sporting penalty for Norris.

It led to many questions about what this could be, particularly with the two drivers in the midst of a mightily close championship battle.

Sky Sports F1's Ted Kravitz revealed during Ted's Notebook that he and Red Bull thought that the repercussions would be to 'give Piastri priority in all the qualifying sessions until the end of the season,' although Brown and McLaren did not confirm this.

Norris managed to finish second at the United States GP with Piastri in fifth, cutting his championship lead for the fourth race weekend in a row, with the gap now down to 14 points.

However, an incident between the pair in the sprint race at the US GP allowed four-time champion Max Verstappen to firmly enter himself into the title fight, with the two McLarens crashing out, and Verstappen winning both races last weekend.

He is now just 40 points behind Piastri, and with McLaren in real danger of letting the drivers' championship slip, they have revealed that those previous 'repercussions' are no longer present for Norris moving forward.

Piastri suggested during media day at the Mexican GP that it was the collision at the start of the Austin sprint race that may have caused the reverse: "We've gone through it again, we go through every weekend regardless of what's happened," Piastri said.

"There is a degree of responsibility from my side on the sprint, and we're starting this weekend on a clean slate for both of us. Just going out and racing and see who can come out on top."

Piastri confirmed "the consequences on Lando's side have been removed", and that his aggressive cut-back out of turn one during the sprint race had led to him taking responsibility for the collision.

Who will win the 2025 championship?

Verstappen has now claimed three of the last five grands prix wins, and has finished second in the other two. He has finished ahead of Norris in all of those five grands prix, and has only been beaten by championship leader Piastri once in that timeframe.

This, coupled with the fact that he is the only one of the three to have championship-winning pedigree, makes you think that the Dutchman may very well be the favourite for the title now.

McLaren wrapped up the constructors' championship back in Singapore, but are desperate for their first championship double since the 1998 season.

They may have to pick a driver to back over the last five remaining rounds of the season if they are to stave off the threat of the imperious Dutchman behind, but it doesn't look like they are planning to do that any time soon.

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