Oscar Piastri is highly regarded in the paddock, having quickly adapted to an intense battle at the front in 2024. With that said, Piastri was still lacking in some areas to teammate Lando Norris. Addressing these weaknesses is the Australian’s priority for the upcoming 2025 campaign:
Piastri ready for the next step
Oscar Piastri couldn’t have asked for a better time to join McLaren or make his F1 debut.
The 23-year-old joined the British team in 2023, the year which marked the beginning of their charge to the front of the field.
After spending the first half of the season in the midfield, McLaren’s upgrades put Piastri in a position to fight for podium places.
In some ways, McLaren’s slow start to 2023 gave Piastri some time to acclimatise himself to F1 and get up to speed – having spend the year prior on the sidelines as Alpine’s reserve driver.
However, the 2024 season was very different. McLaren were the fastest car for most of the season, benefiting from an effective update programme and Red Bull’s mid-season slump.
Unfortunately for Piastri, it was teammate Lando Norris that established himself as Verstappen’s closest challenger.
This caused problems for the Australian, who found himself at the centre of an intense debate regarding McLaren’s use of team orders. Following the Italian GP, Andrea Stella’s squad often used team order to prioritise Norris in the title race.
Whilst a perfectly understandable decision, it obviously created a dynamic within the team that Piastri hoped to avoid.
All to play for at McLaren
He certainly wants to avoid this scenario in 2025 – with the 23-year-old setting his sights on a Championship battle:
“I’ve still got some learning and improving to do,” motorsport.com quotes him as saying.
“I feel like now I’m getting to a stage where on certain days, I feel like I have almost all the tools that I need.
“I’m just not putting them together as much as I want to. And I feel like last year I didn’t have all the tools that I needed. I had some of them, but I still was missing some.
“I feel like now this year, if I don’t have all of them, I certainly have a lot more.
“Whether that’s race pace, qualifying, racing other people, I feel like I’ve shown good moments of that, or even in some of those areas. I’ve just been generally very happy across the board.”
McLaren’s driver line-up can be described as a something of a good problem.
Having two drivers capable of competing at the very front is a challenge, but it’s certainly preferrable to having one driver carrying the burden of leading the team – as Red Bull experienced last season.
Still, this does not mean there won’t be challenges for the Woking team.
Lando Norris enjoyed an advantage over Oscar Piastri last year, which is reflected by most metrics and head-to-head comparisons.
Despite this, Piastri has no intention of becoming a number two driver, as demonstrated on numerous occasions last year.
With the knowledge that McLaren are title favourites heading into 2025, Piastri and Norris’ inter-team rivalry could intensify this season.
