Lando Norris reveals 'red line' McLaren racing rules: 'It's clear to us'

Lando Norris revealed McLaren's "clear" racing rules for himself and Oscar Piastri ahead of this weekend's British Grand Prix, with the ultimatum being that the "red line" is not crossed. 

McLaren has received praise this season as recently as the Austrian Grand Prix for letting its drivers fight, rather than introduce team orders. 

Team orders in the form of 'Papaya rules' were introduced last year, following incidents in Hungary and Italy. 

However, in light of McLaren having the strongest car and its drivers battling for a maiden F1 drivers' title, fights have been allowed to take place. 

It has resulted in some excellent racing between the duo, although McLaren was forced to intervene at the Red Bull Ring due to Piastri almost hitting Norris. 

Had this happened, the championship leader would have gone beyond the Woking-based outfit's "red line" of not making contact, something Norris exceeded in Canada.

"I'd say Canada was a fairly red line," Norris joked to media, including RacingNews365. "Yeah, that was a red line. So the red line is just no contact, that is 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, like 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 to have won multiple world championships still make mistakes. So, 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."

McLaren still in control

It was due to Norris crashing into Piastri in Montreal that the Australian received a radio message in last weekend after narrowly avoiding hitting the Briton at Turn 4. 

Piastri's huge lock-up to avoid crashing into Norris marked the end of the pair's duel in Spielberg, although a fight could be on the cards at Silverstone. 

Despite McLaren being keen to let the drivers always race, Norris does accept that team orders could be introduced in certain situations.

"There'll still be times when, as a team, we get told we have to hold position or do this or do that, because we're still under the guidance of the team," added Norris. "But the whole race last weekend was let them race, and that's what we did.

"So 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. 

"It's, 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, and 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 do in Canada."