McLaren face 'explosion' threat as Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris warning sent

A former McLaren driver has warned the team that they could face 'explosion' this season due to drivers Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.

Piastri and Norris are fighting for the 2025 Drivers' Championship, with Piastri just nine points ahead of his team-mate heading into the final 10 races of the season.

Norris has won three of the last four Grands Prix with Piastri in second, while the reverse result occurred during the Belgian Grand Prix last month.

Barring a shock resurgence from Red Bull or Mercedes, the two McLaren drivers should have little competition apart from each other in aiming for their first Drivers' Championship.

There have been relatively few flashpoints between the pair this season, though there have been some signs of tension.

Piastri and Norris collided in the closing stages of the Canadian Grand Prix, causing the latter to retire.

And Piastri caused controversy by requesting that McLaren allow him to pass Norris for the win at the British Grand Prix, despite having received a time penalty for dangerous braking under the safety car.

McLaren have not had such a scenario - where two of their drivers are both fighting at the forefront of the title race - since the 2007 season.

That season was infamous for the inter-team rivalry between Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, with the relationship between Alonso and his team breaking down beyond repair at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Alonso attempted to block Hamilton from setting a final qualifying lap by stopping in his pit box - claiming the other side of the garage had reneged on an agreement to allow him on-track preference - although years later, in 2023, he claimed that he had not blocked his team-mate.

There have been various allegations made over the years surrounding the incident, with the BBC claiming in 2018 that Alonso had threatened McLaren that he would 'leak' emails to the FIA that were relevant to the team's spygate espionage case.

As it happened, in terms of on-track action, Alonso would ultimately crash out in Japan, Hamilton beached his car in the pit entry in China, and McLaren did not have the pace to compete for the win at the final race in Brazil.

Hamilton only needed a fifth place finish at Interlagos to secure the title but suffered a gearbox fault on lap two that took over a minute to fix and finished seventh.

It was instead Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen that won in both China and Brazil to take the championship.

Ex-McLaren driver warns Piastri, Norris

Now, former McLaren driver Juan Pablo Montoya - who raced for the team in 2005 and 2006 - has warned McLaren over a similar scenario repeating itself.

"If I was a betting person, there's going to be an explosion at McLaren at some stage," Montoya told CoinPoker.

"It is a world championship they are fighting for. When was the last time McLaren had a world champion? 2008 with Lewis.

"They have the constructors in the bag. And they want to let the drivers race, and they want to see fair racing.

"The big thing about McLaren of today is that they give their drivers freedom and they are being very fair in the way they are managing them. Back in my day, when I was there, it was all very controlling.

"The question for me is, sooner or later, they are going to end up crashing. You are going to get to the situation where, because they are so close in points, every position will matter.

"It will get to the point where you will be better off crashing your team-mate rather than losing the points to win a championship. When we come to the last races, and one guy is five points ahead and he passes you, and it means a swing in points, somebody is going to do something crazy.

"It doesn't matter how good the relationship is or might be, this is one rare opportunity that they will have of being world champion.

"I think the rules need to be clear. The only way to prevent armageddon there is to say, if you hit your team-mate on purpose, we're going to make sure the other guy wins."