For the longest time, the F1 World Championship had been a toss-up between McLaren teammates Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris. Part of it has been the duo’s season-long brilliance thus far, combining for 27 podiums in 17 races and 12 first-place finishes—seven for Piastri and five for Norris. Another part has been the midseason swoon of Max Verstappen, who at one point missed the podium completely in six of seven Grands Prix.
But the four-time defending F1 World Champion seems to have rediscovered his stellar form, winning the last two Grands Prix in Italy and Azerbaijan to crawl within 69 points of Piastri and just 44 behind Norris. Not that the British racer is at all surprised, noting that Verstappen was winning early in the season—two of the first seven races—and that Red Bull has “been quick” the entire year.
“It’s not often that they’re slow, you know, so I think people need to stop being so surprised that they’re quick… Max was winning races already at the beginning of the year…,” said Norris. “The whole season they’ve been quick, the Red Bull has been good, they brought some upgrades to Monza which seems to have helped them improve even more. So, not a surprise, I think we know that they’re an incredibly strong team and one of the best drivers ever in Formula 1 so we expect nothing less.”
Oscar Piastri, Lando Norris Control Their Own Fate
While it’s true Max Verstappen is making the F1 World Championship race much more interesting, the reality is that Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris control their own fate. They’ve been showing fine form all season long and will need to continue doing so in the next seven races to fend off Verstappen’s charge.
In particular, Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris must avoid disastrous efforts like the one they had in Baku, where the former had to retire due to numerous issues and the latter finished seventh. Unfortunately for the two season leaders, those same issues could rear their ugly head again. In fact, Norris seems unsure of McLaren’s capability to fend off Red Bull this late in the season.
“They’re going to make our life difficult I think for the rest of the season… We’ve made improvements but things where the Red Bull have been so good and dominant in the past, they still have and we don’t,” Norris pointed out. “We still don’t have the confidence we need. It can be quick, we’re just not able to repeat it as often as we need to and as often as the Red Bull, for example. We’ve had an amazing season, don’t get me wrong, but we clearly have things that are not good enough and we have to keep working on them.”
That seeming lack of confidence could be telling—and possibly an omen of what’s to come for McLaren and its two exceptional drivers, Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris. But they’ll need to regroup real quick because Max Verstappen and Red Bull are lurking and ready to pounce.
