Why it's time the gloves came off at McLaren

"In any team, the quickest driver is the one who comes to the fore. I never asked for number one status. When I went to Ferrari they said, 'We'll make you number one.' I said, 'I'll be number one all the time I outperform whoever else is here.' That was always my attitude in life."

These were the words of the late John Surtees to this writer during the making of the book Real Racers: Formula 1 in the 1950s and 1960s some 15 years ago, and they came to mind in the aftermath of a Singapore Grand Prix in which the best drivers of the day finished first and second (although the increasingly absurd public vote granted this status to the guy classified seventh), but the news agenda was dominated by the soap opera between those who finished third and fourth.

The name Real Racers came about through an interview with Stirling Moss for the same book.

"There are very few real racers in the world, as opposed to mere racing drivers," he said. "They're the people who have a ruddy good go. I don't mean to say that the others aren't trying, because they are; but they don't have the mental ability to push to the same extent, to really take it to a higher level.

"In my day it would be Juan Manuel Fangio, who to my mind was the best driver there has ever been; and Jean Behra was a real racer, too. Others, when you passed them, you didn't really consider where they were. But with Behra you had to watch your mirrors because he'd be trying to take you back.

"Other people you'd get to know, analyse their strengths and weaknesses, their presence of mind. You could work out who you could outbrake, who you'd have to sell a dummy to – and who, quite frankly, you could take liberties with."

Moss saw Fangio as one of the few top 'real races'

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Inarguably this is the essence of motor racing. And the words remain true today even though F1 is now a multi-billion-dollar business, which skews the optics.

Ah yes, optics. One of the more peculiar reviews of Real Racers devoted most of its word count to deconstructing the title, and whether it reflected an inherent European and F1-centric bias against US-based categories such as IndyCar and NASCAR. Apparently the whole project boiled down to some snide Brit taking a roundabout way of saying Bill Vukovich or Fireball Roberts weren't 'real racers'. Bizarre – but, hey, opinions. Everybody's got one.

So the debate about what transpired between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri on lap one of the Singapore Grand Prix has inevitably been dominated by the optics rather than the facts of the matter.

Nobody goes to a James Bond movie in anticipation of spending two hours watching Bond hold hands with Ernst Stavro Blofeld and settle their differences peacefully over a chai latte

Those facts being that Norris needed to get a pass done there and then, given Singapore's well-earned reputation for being a tedious one-stop procession until someone suffers a headfart. So he did it, forcefully and in a manner slightly reminiscent of the first corner in an unruly Forza Motorsport multiplayer hopper, i.e. using the back of the car in front and the side of the car to the right as part of the braking effort.

But what separates this from, say, Charles Leclerc's bravura move on George Russell at Zandvoort, another venue at which overtaking is difficult? Russell harrumphed in protest at the time but later on, having reviewed the various angles from without, quietly conceded that it had been artfully done.

The difference at Marina Bay was that this was a papaya-on-papaya manoeuvre, and in such matters we are all expected to defer to that sacred textbook, the "papaya rules".

Team-mate on team-mate means the battle dynamic between Norris and Piastri is trying to be managed by McLaren

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Now, the principle of ensuring parity between two team-mates is a laudable one, but the increasingly tormented execution of it is demonstrating that the concept is fundamentally unworkable in the heat of competition.

"So are we cool with Lando just barging me out of the way?" Piastri asked in the immediate aftermath of the incident. And as he continued to chafe openly over the airwaves, questioning how the move fitted in with the team's rules of engagement, one had to wonder whether he was lobbying for an intervention from the pitwall.

Surtees and Moss, were they still with us, would have suggested he just get on with the fundamental task of driving the car quickly rather than running the idea of team orders up the flagpole. Not that such concerns fall within the stewards' bailiwick but, in chalking off the Turn 3 contretemps as a 'racing incident', they were in accord with the McLaren pitwall.

After the race, team principal Andrea Stella cast Piastri's airborne angst as a good thing.

"That's the kind of character that we want to have from our drivers," he said. "They have to make their position very clear, that's what we ask them."

He spoke of the "good conversations" within the team, such as after the Canadian Grand Prix, where Norris drove into the back of Piastri during a botched attempt to overtake. This approach may have worked up to now but it's beginning to show signs of strain around the seams.

I respectfully submit that the essence of motor racing is not about having "good conversations" behind the scenes to ensure harmony between drivers who, while team-mates, are axiomatically rivals. What happens on track should not be figured out via some sort of flowchart aimed at ensuring scrupulous fair play.

With the constructors' title sealed, will McLaren loosen its rules?

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It's a lovely idea but it doesn't survive the optics. Each driver has their own view of what is fair or not. And while these can be managed, to an extent, by those "good conversations", the perspective of the rest of F1 and the global audience cannot be micromanaged in this fashion.

"We want to protect this 'let them race' concept," said Stella. "We know that as soon as you adopt this concept you face difficulties."

The swapping of places at Monza might have seemed perfectly fair, and the correct thing to do, from the team's perspective, but it must learn to live with the fact that members of the audience might take a different view. By the same token there are those who think it would have been fairer to order Norris to let Piastri by in Singapore and then resume the fight – not a view to which I subscribe, nor a workable proposition given the nature of the circuit, but, hey, that's opinions for you.

While Norris, Piastri and the McLaren pitwall were wringing their hands over matters of etiquette, somebody else was winning the Singapore Grand Prix

Whenever a team feels the need to intervene to restore the scales of balance, it diminishes the nature of motor racing, which is the competition on track.

Nobody goes to a James Bond movie in anticipation of spending two hours watching Bond hold hands with Ernst Stavro Blofeld and settle their differences peacefully over a chai latte.

Stripped down to its essence, racing is just that: racing. One person getting to the finishing line ahead of the other. While Norris, Piastri and the McLaren pitwall were wringing their hands over matters of etiquette, somebody else was winning the Singapore Grand Prix.

No need for a committee meeting. Just have "a ruddy good go" – and don't hit your team-mate.

Focus shifts solely to the title fight from the US GP

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