Brown: There were never any conflicts between Lando and Oscar.

      McLaren's management is doing everything it can to maintain a normal atmosphere within the team. Speaking on the High Performance podcast, Zak Brown explained how conflicts between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri are avoided, despite incidents on track that involved both of the team's drivers.

      "There has never been any conflict between them, I'm telling you," said the executive director of McLaren Racing. "Not once. You know that feeling when you walk into a room and immediately sense a kind of tension? Well, that has never happened. Even when their cars made contact on track, and when they didn't follow Andrea Stella's instructions exactly, neither I nor the rest of the team saw them trying to blame each other. There was never a situation where they said, 'It's all Lando's fault!' or 'It's all Oscar's fault!'

      Whenever the drivers are unhappy about something, it's mainly directed at Andrea and me, because we try to act fairly and maintain balance. I think the fact that both are sometimes unhappy with us actually confirms that everything is being done according to principles of fairness, and that the balance is maintained. Because we simply try to ensure they race cleanly on track, and that's exactly what they do.

      All the incidents involving both of them, although there haven't been many, ultimately were racing incidents. But we want to guarantee that the fate of the title is decided on track, not as a result of some other incident. I think we're lucky to have drivers like them.

      That said, I'm not sure that Andrea, the whole team, and I would have been able to handle some other drivers as successfully as we have handled Oscar and Lando. So I believe much of it is explained by their personal qualities.

      When we invite drivers to talks and are still evaluating them, we always pay attention to the specifics of their characters, and whether they can adopt our way of thinking. All important issues are discussed completely openly and on an ongoing basis, because we are proponents of transparency in everything related to information sharing."

      With three races remaining in the season, Lando Norris leads the drivers' standings; Oscar Piastri trails him by 24 points and in turn leads Max Verstappen by 25 points, with Verstappen performing excellently at this stage of the season and realistically contesting, if not the title, then at least second place in the championship.