Oscar Piastri won his second race of the F1 World Championship, becoming the first driver to repeat a victory this season. The Australian driver is second in the World Championship with 74 points, just three points behind his teammate and leader, Lando Norris, who continues to struggle. Piastri’s crash in the Australian Grand Prix prevented him from dominating the World Championship.
McLaren on track for the Constructors’ Championship
If we focus solely on the team’s performance, McLaren has many reasons to be happy this year. It leads the world championship with a commanding lead over its rivals, and although it is clear that it has dropped a few more points than it could have, the balance is more than positive and right now it is on course for its second consecutive world title.
Lando Norris and Oscar Piatri lead the Drivers’ Championship and, therefore, McLaren dominates the Constructors’ Championship. They do so with 151 points, 58 more than Mercedes, which, without making much noise, continues to rack up points race after race, first with Russell and now also with Antonelli, who is slowly getting to grips with the Mercedes and proving why he was Toto Wolff’s big bet. However, the silver team is not in a position, right now, to stand up to the “papayas.”
Piastri, going for the World Championship
McLaren has a problem, and that problem is called Lando Norris. The British driver, a priori, starts as the number one driver of a team that has always advocated that its drivers fight on the track. And that doesn’t seem to suit Norris, who hasn’t quite made his mark and imposed his experience. It happened to him last season, when he took a long time to realize that he had a real chance of fighting for the World Championship (his team didn’t either), and by the time he realized it, it was too late. His lack of ambition handed Verstappen his fourth World Championship on a plate.
Now the problem lies within his own team. Piastri is evolving into an ambitious driver who wants to win the world championship at all costs. He has seen an opportunity this year and is going to fight for it with all his might. He is the first to recognize his teammate’s weakness, a weakness that is increasingly shared by the F1 world. Many believe that Norris is a very good driver, but that he does not have the blood of a world champion.
A problem for McLaren
In principle, McLaren is going to allow its two drivers to fight each other, but this could end up working against them during the World Championship. Now, as long as both cars continue to score points for the team, everything is fine. But if they reach future races where both are fighting for the World Championship, they could jeopardize the team’s objectives. It wouldn’t be the first time this has happened in F1, and if it does, it certainly won’t be the last. The greatest rivalry in F1 is between teammates; it has always been this way and will continue to be so. And this year, it seems that Piastri is not going to settle for watching Norris from second place. It already happened in the first race of the year, with Norris first and Piastri second, when the New Zealander went off the track to keep the pressure on the Brit. And there was also tension in Japan during Verstappen’s victory, where Norris was unable to catch Verstappen, and Norris, who was in third place, asked to overtake his teammate to catch the Dutchman, but was refused by the team.
Piastri is well placed to become McLaren’s leader. Norris’ lack of ambition remains evident, and McLaren is on course to make the same mistakes as last year. We will see how the team’s battle for the number one spot unfolds.