Oscar Piastri seems to have laid down a marker after he won his third race of the 2025 season at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit on Sunday. With him winning in Saudi Arabia, he also became the first Australian since Mark Webber in 2010 to lead the championship.
While McLaren would be all smiles after seeing Piastri’s performance, his teammate Lando Norris is unlikely to be happy. Since Piastri is considered Norris’ main rival, the Briton will know all too well that the momentum is slipping from his side due to his recent mistakes that seem to have cost him dearly.
Norris first faltered in Bahrain last weekend when he managed to qualify just P6 due to an error in qualifying. He then made a far worse mistake during the Saudi Arabian GP qualifying as he crashed out, leading him to qualify only P10. While he did produce a decent recovery to finish P4, it was not enough to keep his lead in the standings.
But what has been the key difference that has helped Piastri perform better than Norris, who is currently in his seventh season with McLaren and likely to be considered the senior driver on the side? According to former F1 driver Martin Brundle, it is Piastri’s calm demeanor.
“It’s ominous, it’s very good for him, and he’s still a young man. He’s 82 races behind Lando Norris in terms of experience. That calm head of his will pay dividends. You can imagine, if we get a big, old championship showdown, how useful his horizontal sort of nature will be,” he said in the commentary box.
Oscar Piastri, everyone!
The McLaren driver leads the drivers’ championship for the first time in his career #F1 #SaudiArabianGP pic.twitter.com/y19dsynNDi
— Formula 1 (@F1) April 20, 2025
With Piastri winning in Saudi Arabia, the pendulum seems to have swung massively in his favor as he now not only has momentum on his side but also leads the standings by 10 points from Norris, with Max Verstappen just two points further back.
The way Norris has been performing recently, he may need to worry more about Verstappen passing him in the standings than care about his own championship ambitions. So, the Briton will hope that he can bounce back in the next race in Miami, where he earned his maiden F1 win last season.
