Brown: Norris/Piastri Canada crash took air out of the balloon

While it may sound weird, as no team boss would be happy when his drivers crashed, Brown was happy the anticipated contact between his drivers was done and out of the way.

As McLaren are far ahead in the 2025 F1 constructors' title, the drivers' championship is far from being decided, as Piastri leads Norris by just eight points, while the only driver that may challenge them, Max Verstappen, is 61 points off second place in third.

With all that is going on at Red Bull Racing, Verstappen's only chance to retain his title in 2025 would be that the McLaren teammates start taking points off each other or taking each other out, but Brown is hoping their clash in Montreal, where Norris rear-ended Piastri and retired, has released the tension.

He said: "I think Montreal was actually a nice moment for all of us, in hindsight, that it just kind of took the air out of the balloon and we just kind of got it over with and everyone was talking about it.

"I kind of feel like it’s raised everyone’s confidence and comfort of, ‘It’s happened, it was a mistake’, so I think we’ll see other incidents in the near future, but there will be racing mistakes and racing mistakes are going to happen."

Brown has maintained that his drivers had to race by Papaya Rules and insisted that should continue to be the rule going forward when asked how McLaren plan to manage their drivers for the rest of the season.

"I think just keep doing what we’re doing," he said. "Treat them equally, fairly, transparently, [have] good communication, and if we can continue to build the gap then we want it to be up to them to decide who wins the championship, if it comes down to being the two of them.

“We’ll treat them equally and fairly, and may the best man win. They’re both very clean drivers so that’s what’s cool, you don’t feel like one’s going to run one off the track.

"They’re going to fight hard—mistakes will happen along the way, but I think it’s going to be an epic battle down to the final race," the American concluded.