Oscar Piastri highlights “big difference” with Lando Norris in F1 title battle

McLaren duo Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris came out at the start of the 2025 season as key contenders for the Drivers’ title. Going into the summer break, less than 10 points separated the two drivers, with Max Verstappen arguably out of the title race. Piastri came out and highlighted the difference between the battle with Norris for the F1 title while comparing it to his junior Formula title battles.

Lando Norris and Piastri have traded wins and podiums in the first half of the season. Both drivers have stood on the podium 12 times, with Norris having five wins and Piastri having six race wins. The Australian has previously battled his teammates for the title in F3 and F2.

In a recent interview uploaded on Autosport’s YouTube channel, the McLaren driver came out and detailed the difference between his title fight against Lando Norris and those in the junior Formula categories. Oscar Piastri said,

“I think for me the big difference is this is the first time I've really raced a teammate so hard for a championship. I raced against Logan Sergeant for the championship in F3 but there's much less involved before you get to F1. There's no pit stops, there's no strategy, it's purely just go out and try and beat each other and finish ahead of each other.” (12:26 onwards)

“In F1, you've got the added complication of strategy. You've got a bunch of different things that can influence results, so that's been quite a different dynamic in some ways,” added Oscar Piastri.

Piastri went up against his PREMA Racing teammate Robert Shwartzman for the 2021 F2 title, with the Australian coming out on top and his teammate finishing in P2. However, it wasn't a close fight as Piastri won with a 60-point gap to Shwartzman.

In the 2020 F3 season, Oscar Piastri went up against his PREMA teammate Logan Sargeant and ART GP’s Theo Pourchaire. It was a close fight as Piastri secured the title with 164 points, and Pourchaire and Sargeant narrowly missed out, scoring 161 and 160 points respectively.

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Oscar Piastri detailed his area of improvement, which has resulted in the title fight against Lando Norris

Following McLaren's 2024 Miami GP upgrades, Lando Norris began challenging Max Verstappen for race wins. While Oscar Piastri also won his first race last season, he was nowhere near as consistent as his teammate. Coming into 2025, the Australian has improved on the same, which he detailed as the biggest area of improvement. He said,

“Last year, I felt like I had some weekends that were very strong and felt like I had enough to win races on my good days. But there were a lot of average and sometimes bad days in between. This year has been full of a lot more good days. I have improved as a driver, but I think I've been able to get closer to what I think I'm capable of more often. That's been the biggest thing.” (via F1)

Lando Norris won the 2025 Hungarian GP and reduced the championship gap to merely nine points going into the summer break.