Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris push each other and benefit from it – But what happens when the title fight comes down to the two of them?
Your own teammate is known to be the first opponent you want to beat. This is no different for Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. Both could become their fiercest title rivals in this Formula One season. But for now, the McLaren duo is focusing on working together and synergizing.
After the Chinese Grand Prix, team principal Andrea Stella revealed that Norris had been able to recover from the difficulties at the beginning of the weekend mainly because he had learned from Piastri, studied his data and his handling of the tires in the sprint race, in order to improve.
When asked about this, Piastri emphasizes: “We have different strengths and weaknesses as drivers. There are weekends when things go better for me, and then there are also those when I have to take a lead from Lando and learn from him.”
“I think that’s definitely an advantage we have. When you have strong teammates, you always learn from each other. It’s impossible to measure how much time you gain from pushing each other, but you definitely gain something.”
A collaboration in competition
Norris agrees, highlighting the strength of internal competition: “Apart from Ferrari, I don’t think there’s another team that has two drivers pushing each other as hard as we do. And for us, that’s a huge advantage.”
“We have a great car, we have a great team, but we also have two drivers who push each other more than any other team. And that will always triumph – even over the best driver in the field. That’s one of our greatest strengths right now – how we are able to learn from each other.”
Like Norris from Piastri in China. ‘Oscar’s ability to adapt to a track like this was impressive, and something that I found much more difficult,’ admits the Briton. He had to struggle with understeer in particular.
“But I learned a lot from Oscar this weekend and his ability to adapt to these different situations. It’s definitely something we’ll maximize because it helps us beat every other team right now. It’s a great car and they’re two incredible drivers!”
However, the McLaren drivers are well aware that it can also lead to tension in the long term when two teammates are fighting for the same goal, namely the title.
But Norris says they are both “ready” for it. “We were allowed to drive freely here. I didn’t have the pace to really catch up with Oscar, and he drove very well. So he deserved it. Just like I deserved it last week.“
”You know, there were those two laps that everyone likes to talk about, where we just held our position,” Norris recalled of the team’s instructions when Piastri caught up with him in Australia, ”but the rest we rode freely.”
“I’m sure we’ll have closer fights at some point. I think we’re both excited – probably nervous and excited at the same time – as is the team, for sure. But we’re ready. We’re helping each other, but we both know we want to win. That’s inevitable.”
But the team comes first. Because Norris knows: “Other teams can always find something. Some have already talked about upgrades and they can catch up faster than you think, just like we did last year. So we also have to think as a team and push the team further.”
McLaren’s leadership approach
This is the only way to achieve results like the one-two victory for McLaren in Australia. “It was a combination of set-up and Lando looking at the data from Oscar. I think that’s the advantage of having two number one drivers. They can learn from each other,” emphasizes McLaren CEO Zak Brown.
Team principal Stella adds: “We worked intensively with both drivers after the sprint in China to adjust their driving styles, because depending on their natural driving style, Oscar had less tire wear than Lando. So Lando had to learn a few things from Oscar, but there were also things that Oscar adopted.”
The Italian also emphasizes that the advantage of having two strong drivers is that they can gain “valid and relevant information” that the other can use for themselves.
“And if you manage to combine the strengths of both well, you raise your own level,” says Stella. ”It makes the internal competition interesting, but overall it raises the level for the team so much that we are very happy to have them with us.”
The team principal also wants to remain true to his policy of letting Norris and Piastri race each other freely, provided they do not unnecessarily hinder or jeopardize strategies. This was also the case in China: “There was a phase when Lando wanted to save his tires to attack Oscar later,” Stella reveals.
“Oscar did the same – he wanted to see if Lando would attack and have enough tire budget to do so. At the same time, we had to pay attention to the gaps to the rear. But the race was never controlled.“
”Both understood that there was a phase in which it made no sense to push too hard because the way to the end was long and uncertain from a tire standpoint.”
