'A good battle' – Norris and Piastri reflect on McLaren intra-team fight in Italian Grand Prix

Lando Norris believes his late tussle with McLaren team mate Oscar Piastri in the Italian Grand Prix was “a good battle” which was “fair”, despite initially complaining over the radio.

Despite entering the weekend at Monza having taken two consecutive wins, reigning World Champion Norris was only able to start P8 for Sunday’s 53-lap race.

The Briton was able to make steady progress though, and was challenging Piastri for P4, sealing the position on the final lap into the Ascari Chicane, but only after an earlier moment where Norris took to the grass.

“No, it was okay," said Norris when reflecting on the incident on the exit of Curva Grande and heading into the second chicane.

“I still need to review things, but I think it's just a perception of when you're in the car, when someone's kind of opening the gap a bit and then kind of go straight, you get that perception when you're going at 200mph. So that's all.

“But I think what he did was fair. It's just when you're in the moment and you're half on the grass, you realise how quickly things can end pretty badly – just in the heat of the moment. But from that side it was fine, and was a good battle. So yeah, a good result from a tough race.”

Piastri started P6 after being handed a three-place grid drop for blocking Liam Lawson in Qualifying, and the Australian battled Lewis Hamilton's Ferrari for much of the race.

Having been unable to keep pace with Max Verstappen on a fresh set of tyres ahead, Piastri ultimately fell into the clutches of Norris, but also believed their battle to be fair.

"It was a tough battle for sure. I think we both seemed pretty even, especially in the last few laps, so it was definitely challenging to know when to use your battery, when not to," he said.

“I think that we saw a good battle. From my point of view, I thought it was good racing – exciting, that's for sure, and ultimately I think that was the best result we could have got as a team, so I'm pretty happy with it.”

Despite having the same power unit as Mercedes, which claimed a 1-2 with Kimi Antonelli and George Russell, McLaren were unable to extract the same performance.

The progress of Piastri and Norris wasn't helped by losing the tow to the Mercedes drivers and Verstappen ahead in the middle phase of the race, leaving them out of the slipstream and adrift.

“We needed someone to kind of pull us along, and then we could compete, because then we're more on a level playing field compared to them," said Norris.

"I think on a day like today, it was almost a good thing to not be ahead for too often, because generally you would always go backwards.

“But then when you were behind, you always felt like you could go forwards. So it was always a tough position to be in. Sometimes you just had to be a little bit patient, and kind of for me, that worked on the final two laps. I think P4 was the best we could achieve, and P4 and P5 for us as a team is also good.”