Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri dominated the sprint race today, with the McLaren teammates pulling off a last-second position swap that let Piastri take the win.
But it was their comments about the recent FIA meeting that caught everyone’s attention.
“Yeah, progress was made,” Norris said during the post-sprint press conference. “It’s an ongoing thing, not something that’s finalised now.”
The young Brit seemed optimistic about the discussions between drivers and officials. “It was a good step that we had the meeting in the first place. All the drivers were on board, and I think we made progress as a sport in trying to make things fairer but also better for everyone watching.”
Piastri, fresh off his sprint victory, had more to share about the meeting’s outcomes.
“Any kind of discussion like that is always good in terms of building a relationship with the stewards and the race director,” the Australian rookie explained. “Like George said on Thursday, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. For the majority of situations, it’s been good having these guidelines.”
But there’s still room for improvement, according to Piastri.
“The guidelines just need a couple of tweaks or adjustments,” he said. “In racing, there’s so many scenarios that you can come across and trying to write rules for every scenario is difficult, which I think we fully acknowledge as drivers.”
The McLaren duo’s strong performance on track was matched by their diplomatic approach off it. Both drivers seem confident that the relationship between racers and officials is heading in the right direction.
“I think we all felt that there was a couple of things that could have been tweaked to make everyone’s life a little bit easier,” Piastri added. “So I think a very productive meeting and progress.”
