Norris reveals what is "the red line" for McLaren

McLaren driver Lando Norris has explained what is "the red line" for the Woking-based outfit, claiming that his crash with his team-mate Oscar Piastri was not on a line that "we don't ever want to cross."

McLaren endured a difficult weekend at the Canadian Grand Prix as the papaya team slightly struggled for one-lap performance considering their dominant form in 2025. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were unable to beat Mercedes in qualifying, with the Australian and the Briton ending up third and seventh on the grid.

The championship leader had an average start, and lost a place to Mercedes rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli on the opening lap. Norris meanwhile had started on the hard tyre and ran a long first stint. Despite his offset strategy, he was unable to make a one-stop strategy work. It meant that he rejoined the track in P5 after his second stop.

In the dying stages of the race, Norris hounded Piastri, who in turn was chasing Antonelli. With only six laps to go, Norris made a move and got his team mate in the hairpin, but Piastri retaliated and got back past.

However, Norris was eager to make the move on his team-mate, but he misjudged the distance to the Australian and swiped the rear of his car on the start-finish straight.

The touch sent Norris into the wall and out of the race, while Piastri limped home to collect a valuable haul of twelve points with a fourth-place finish.

Asked about the intra-team battle at McLaren, Norris explained: "I would say Canada was a fairly red line. Yeah. That was the red line. So, the red line is just no contact.

"That’s it, I would say. It's simple. It's also not simple because when you're racing so much on the limits and you're trying to push the limits of everything, it's so easy to make mistakes.

"As much as you can say we're the best drivers in the world, doesn't mean people don't make mistakes. Even the very best who have won multiple World Championships still make mistakes.

"That's the line that we don't ever want to cross, and I think we both know that very much so as drivers. We want to race. There'll still be times when as a team we get told we'll have to hold position or do this or do that because we're still under the guidance of the team.

"But the whole race last weekend was "let them race", and that's what we did. It's clear to us. It's not always something that we have to voice and make clear to everyone else, but it's quite simple. You can do what you guys want to do. You can have fun. You can get close.

"I'm sure it'll make them nervous like it already did last weekend, but there's also a lot of people that work hard to build our cars and give us the possibility to win a race in the first place.

"If we lose those opportunities because of something silly, then that's where we easily cross the line. So, free to race most of the time for sure, and just don't do what I did in Canada," concluded Norris.