Oscar Piastri lived up to all the hype around him in his rookie season in 2023. The Aussie hit the ground running and showed promising signs of becoming a solid champion driver for McLaren. Many thought he would soon usurp Lando Norris as the team’s lead driver given his talent and impeccable junior career record.
However, the reality was a mix of disappointment and hope in 2024. Piastri did well to stay close to Norris’ pace and even beat him at times. But it was unfortunately too occasional than many would’ve fancied.
Norris, in fact, beat him quite convincingly over the season and even emerged as a championship contender amid McLaren’s rise as the fastest team on the grid. Finishing 82 points behind the Briton in P4, Piastri’s sophomore year did make him a Grand Prix winner but he struggled a bit in qualifying relative to his much more experienced teammate.
Qualifying hasn’t been one of Piastri‘s strong traits relative to his racecraft. The head-to-head statistical comparison between the McLaren duo in both the 2023 and 2024 seasons paints a bad picture of his single-lap pace.
Piastri lost 15-7 to Norris in Grand Prix qualifying in his debut season. While one would’ve expected the 23-year-old’s record would improve, it worsened to 20-4 last year. The British driver is regarded as one of the best qualifiers in the young drivers’ crop that has come onto the F1 scene in recent years.
This includes the likes of Charles Leclerc and George Russell as well, who are also excellent over a single lap. As for Norris, he seems to have a clear upper hand over Piastri. The numbers at least indicate the same.
Not one but TWO first-time winners in 2024, and they both race for @McLarenF1
Here’s how Oscar and Lando stack up after their epic championship-winning season#F1 pic.twitter.com/YgJUP0Spak
— Formula 1 (@F1) December 12, 2024
The #81 driver has been claiming that he wishes to fight for the title in 2025. While he knows he has a few chinks in his armor, Piastri feels confident that he can iron those out.
“Last season I started with some weaknesses – I didn’t have a lot of confidence. I worked on that during the year and now I just have to be there every weekend,” he said.
To be fair, if one compares Piastri and Norris’ pace more objectively, the head-to-head numbers may also seem a bit misleading.
Piastri has the potential to be closer to Norris
While Norris would’ve beaten Piastri 20 times in Grand Prix qualifying last season, the Melbourne-born driver was quite close to his teammate’s pace on multiple occasions. The average qualifying difference between them proves the same.
In the initial eight rounds of the 2024 season, the average pace gap over one lap between Piastri and Norris was only 0.042 seconds — the closest of all 10 driver pairings. Given how the Melbourne-born driver improved in the second half of the season, this gap would not have deteriorated much, if it did at all.
On top of that, Piastri’s two wins in Baku and Budapest in only his second season also exposed Norris’ lack of success at McLaren in his six years with the team. In fact, the #4 driver won his first Grand Prix in 2024 itself in Miami.
While he did win three more later in the season, Norris also dropped several chances to win more races despite having the fastest car. His poor race starts, especially from pole, cost him multiple victories, and arguably the championship as well.
Still no luck on lap one for Lando!
That’s 7 F1 P1 starts and no opening laps led from any of them for Norris ❌ pic.twitter.com/CghxIT4G2F
— Autosport (@autosport) September 1, 2024
Relative to Piastri, Norris leaving wins on the table in his sixth F1 season doesn’t exactly reflect elite racing caliber. There is a reason Piastri youngster gets so much hype and people strongly consider him a future world champion.
The 23-year-old definitely has to iron out his short-hand in qualifying along with consistency in the races as well. But given where he is in his career relative to Norris, Piastri can certainly surpass the Briton’s performance level. Will it be in 2025?
Why McLaren aren’t demoting Piastri to be Norris’ wingman
McLaren had to ask Piastri to help Norris for his championship challenge last season. The Briton had a faster car than Max Verstappen and also had a points advantage over Piastri. So, it was understandable that he would be the lead title contender at McLaren, despite Piastri being close to his pace.
In the second half of the season, he was often in a position to beat his teammate. But the Woking team needed to prioritize Norris and reluctantly asked Piastri to let him pass in races. Why were they reluctant, though?
McLaren felt that both of their drivers were incredibly close on pace, so they did not want to demote Piastri. Regardless, he accepted that Norris had a better chance of winning the title from that stage and agreed to move over for him whenever needed.
Heading into 2025, McLaren may not risk doing the same. Given both drivers start from zero points again, there is a greater chance that even Piastri could be in the championship fight besides Norris. Improving on his mistakes and inconsistencies from last season, Piastri is keen to fight for his maiden title, just like Norris.
Given how he overtook the Briton on the opening lap of the Italian GP last year, McLaren would be wary of asking him to stay back as a wingman and let Norris lead their drivers’ championship charge. Even the team principal Andrea Stella has stated that neither of the two will get a preference unless they earn it.
