Norris and Piastri take an unusually friendly F1 title rivalry to Norris’ home turf

Second-placed McLaren driver Oscar Piastri of Australia congratualtes the victory to McLaren driver Lando Norris of Britain during the Austrian Formula One Grand Prix in Spielberg, Austria, Sunday

The history of Formula 1 shows how vying for the title can turn the friendliest of teammates into bitter rivals. But so far, Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris are making it work at McLaren.

As Norris heads to his home race at Silverstone, he’s hoping fans at the British Grand Prix show his Australian teammate some love, too.

“The British fans are normally very accepting for all of us and especially for us as McLaren. So I think the first point should be for the fans to embrace everyone and support everyone,” Norris said after his win at Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix when asked if there might be a hostile reception for Piastri.

Nine years ago, one of F1’s most famous teammate rivalries came into focus at the Austrian Grand Prix, when childhood friends-turned-Mercedes teammates Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg collided on the last lap, one more incident in a relationship which had long been rocky.

Two apologies

There have been recent incidents in Norris’ and Piastri’s time together which potentially may have soured the relationship between other drivers.

In Canada, Norris clipped the back of Piastri’s car on June 15 and hit the wall. Norris apologized.

On Sunday in Austria, Piastri attempted an over-optimistic lunge and narrowly missed hitting Norris. Piastri apologized.

“We both want to race hard and race fair, and it goes both ways,” Norris said Sunday.

“(The incident in Canada is) something I wish never happened but it was nice that we could go out and have a good battle (in Austria) and push things to the limits,” he said. “There were still some close moments, but nothing that was hopefully something that would make Andrea (Stella, McLaren’s team principal) or the pit wall sweat too much.”

Welcome to Silverstone

In his third year with Britain-based McLaren, Piastri has some warm memories of the Silverstone crowd, but he’s never been there before as a championship leader whose closest rival is the home hero.

“A couple of years ago they were chanting my name in the crowd, so that was unexpected. I’m not sure I’ll quite get that again, which is fair enough,” Piastri said. “Obviously I’m expecting there to be a lot more Lando fans than ‘me’ fans, but that’s fair. It’s it’s his home race as well, so I think it’ll be fine.” MDT/AP