McLaren explain secretive plan and refuse to say what 'repercussions' Lando Norris faces

McLaren are refusing to explain exactly what "repercussions" Lando Norris is dealing with at this weekend's United States Grand Prix. The Brit confirmed in Austin on Thursday that he had been held "accountable" for causing contact with team-mate Oscar Piastri at the Singapore race two weeks ago.

The stewards saw nothing wrong with that first-lap collision and, despite Piastri's complaints, McLaren declined to intervene during that race. But they have now acted with Norris confirming he will face "repercussions" this weekend in Texas.

Asked what those repercussions are during first practice on Friday, chief executive Zak Brown declined to go into too much detail but did confirm that Norris is carring a "marginal, sporting" handicap. He said: "We review every race. Lando and Oscar had a bit of a touch there. The start of a Formula 1 race is pretty manic and it was clearly not intentional.

"But we don't want our cars touching. We laid out how we want to go racing at the start of the year and so there is a little bit of a sporting repercussion in lieu of what happened. We move forward, the drivers are comfortable and they are free to race.

"It's marginal, it's consistent with what happened which was a racing incident at the end of the day, at the start of a Grand Prix on a track which was somewhat damp. It wasn't intentional. But [the handicap] is very marginal, it probably won't be noticed.

"Lando and and Oscar know what it is, which is what's most important. Of course, we want to be transparent with our fans. We're doing it the hard way, trying to let both guys race for the championship. The easy way out would be to have a one-two as some teams do, but that's not how McLaren want to go racing."

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Those comments were picked up on by the media swiftly and Brown faced a barrage of questions on the matter during a press conference held between that practice session and Sprint qualifying. But the McLaren chief continued to offer vague responses and, when asked directly why he would not say what handicap has been given to Norris, explained: "We're racing against nine other teams, I don't think you want to necessarily show your hand on how you go motor racing.

"We try to be as transparent as possible but there's a reason why engineering debriefs are only with teams. Otherwise you start inviting other teams in. That's the best we can do, we try to be as transparent as possible and saying some action has been taken that has been very transparent.

"But at the end of the day, we're at a sporting event and we can't necessarily tell everyone everything - it's no different than our set-up sheets aren't very public."