The Latest Breaking News from McLaren

Ricciardo, paid by McLaren to leave the team for this season, was called to replace sacked AlphaTauri driver Nyck de Vries from Hungary. But two rounds later, the Australian crashed in practice at Zandvoort, sustaining a broken metacarpal in his left hand and flew to Spain for immediate surgery.

With its two drivers on slightly offset strategies at Suzuka, McLaren had to ask Piastri to let Norris through at one point to ensure that they did not waste time fighting each other and risk squandering the team's prospects for a double podium finish.

The Silverstone-based outfit began 2023 as Red Bull’s main challenger, with Fernando Alonso rolling off five podium finishes from the first six races. He also had a shot at winning the Monaco Grand Prix. 

Piastri secured the first podium of his F1 career with third at last weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix, joining team-mate Lando Norris on the rostrum, but admitted after the race that it was not his finest performance.