As McLaren’s team celebrated their constructors’ championship on the podium after the Singapore Grand Prix, social media quickly became abuzz about a notable absentee – drivers’ championship leader Oscar Piastri.
Piastri had finished fourth behind teammate and drivers’ championship rival Lando Norris, a result which was mathematically enough to win a second-straight constructors’ crown.
It had been a controversial race for the team, however. Norris had barged past Piastri on the opening lap – almost putting the Australian driver into the wall at Turn 3 – to gain third position. Piastri had spent the next laps making his frustration at the move clear.
“That’s not fair,” Piastri had said at the time. “Sorry, that’s not fair. If he has to avoid [Verstappen] by crashing into his teammate, that’s a pretty s— job of avoiding.”
The move was decisive, with Norris reducing Piastri’s title lead to three points. After the traditional podium ceremony for the top three finishers – winner George Russell, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Norris – an unprecedented scene unfolded on the podium, with McLaren’s race team spilling out onto the podium to celebrate.
Queen’s ‘We Are The Champions’ played as Norris was joined by team boss Andrea Stella, McLaren CEO Zak Brown and the majority of the race team to celebrate the achievement.
Piastri’s absence quickly led to speculation he had opted not to celebrate with the team. The reality was far less spicy.
The procedure drivers have to follow after a Formula 1 race is determined by finishing position. The top three finishers do F1 TV interview immediately after getting out of their parked cars, mandated by Formula One Management (FOM) to give broadcasters an immediate hit from the top drivers. They then go to the popular cooldown room – where their conversations and observations about the race are broadcast to the watching audience — before walking out to the traditional podium celebration for the top three race finishers, which culminates in the famous spraying of champagne. There, they are given trophies by the governing governing FIA, which shows the slightly quirky split between Formula 1 itself and the body which actually oversees the competitive part of the sport itself.
Normally, championship victories are formally recognized at the FIA’s end-of-season gala event, although this is something Formula 1 owners Liberty Media have been keen to move away from since taking over the sport in 2018.
Sources confirmed to ESPN that F1 proposed the constructors’ championship idea to McLaren earlier in the weekend. McLaren had been reluctant to plan too much, worried about tempting fate – the team had also had a mathematical chance of winning the title two weeks ago in Baku. By the time the race was over, McLaren had mathematically done enough to be champions.
Brown and Stella both did interviews after the top three race finishers, before McLaren’s race team streamed from the paddock and up to the podium for the unique celebration. Sources at the team confirmed to ESPN that most team members did not know about the podium plan until after the race was finished.
That’s where the other protocol for drivers not on the podium is key. Drivers who finish outside of the top three are required under the regulations to go straight to the FIA weighing scales before going to the media pen in the paddock for TV and written media for interviews (drivers who retire during the race go to the pen while the race is still going on).
As he finished fourth, this applied to Piastri. It is not uncommon for drivers who finished fourth or lower to be doing interviews while the national anthem of the winning team and driver is playing out in the background, showing how often there is an overlap between the broadcast and written media interviews and the podium ceremony itself.
The rules can be fairly rigid – often, drivers who are due to visit the stewards over in-race incidents will still go to the media pen first, often invalidating what they have told the press. A good example on Sunday evening was Lewis Hamilton, who did interviews in the TV pen before going to see the stewards for a pre-scheduled hearing.
The Ferrari driver was given a five-second penalty for multiple track limits violations, dropping him from seventh to eighth, and did not return to the pen to give his opinion afterwards as he was not required to do so under the rules.
One of Piastri’s quotes on the controversial incident in question highlighted how soon after the race it had taken place. “I need to see the incident in more detail, honestly,” Piastri said in the written media pen when probed on the Norris incident. “I think once I have the full picture of things, then yes, undoubtedly we will speak about it. I want to see exactly what happened before I make any conclusions.”
Notably, Piastri joined McLaren as normal for the celebration the team had intended to do all along – a picture in the pit-lane, featuring both drivers, its race team and Stella.
Perhaps perfectly encapsulating the fluid nature of the Formula 1 paddock and the logistics around it, there was another notable absentee from that photo, too – CEO Brown, who had already left the circuit by that stage to get his flight out of Singapore.
Brown had passed members of the written media waiting to talk to Stella in McLaren’s hospitality centre as he made his way out, before the pit-lane photo celebration took place.
“Job done,” Brown said with a beaming smile. “See you all in Austin.”
The U.S. Grand Prix is one of six remaining races in the 2025 season.
Piastri leads Norris by 22 points in the drivers’ championship. Both men are hoping to become McLaren’s first drivers’ champion since 2008.
