Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris have been team-mates at McLaren for three years and are now battling it out for the 2025 F1 World Championship with three races to go
Oscar Piastri reckons his bond with team-mate Lando Norris has grown stronger despite their fierce championship battle, with just 24 points separating them heading into the final three races of the 2025 season.
When the campaign kicked off and McLaren’s dominance became apparent, many predicted an internal title scrap could damage the pair’s friendship. After all, with major rule changes looming this winter, this could be their only chance at F1 glory.
Early on, Piastri set the pace. The Australian claimed five victories in the opening nine races to establish himself as the favourite, and after further triumphs at Spa and Zandvoort, he’d built a commanding 34-point lead.
Since then, however, his form has nosedived. Norris has now outperformed his colleague at the last six Grand Prix weekends, wiping out Piastri’s cushion in a matter of weeks before establishing his own 24-point advantage with three rounds left. Yet despite the intensity of this back-and-forth contest, their friendship remains intact.
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“I think it’s either exactly the same or, honestly, probably better than it has been,” Piastri told the Beyond the Grid podcast. “I think, you know, that I think it’s better if anything, because we just know each other more now. We’ve been together for our third year as team-mates.
“So we’ll just slowly get to know each other more and more. So I think from that side, you know, it’s probably in a better place than it ever has been. And I think we’re both the kind of people that what happens on track stays on track.
“There’s no kind of… maybe there’s, you know, short-lived emotions off the track, but I think we’re both quite good at just letting things die down and again, leaving things on the track. So from that side of things, that’s really not changed.
“You know, the way we’re still trying to get the most out of the team is exactly the same. And you know, we still want broadly similar things from the team, I think, and from the car. I think we probably have subtle differences that we’ve probably worked out more and more, what each of us likes from a car setup direction, and what our strengths and weaknesses are.
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“But the broad messaging that we want from the team is the same still. So from that side of things, it’s all very similar to how it was two years ago.”
As explained by McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown earlier this year, McLaren have promised to ensure their title celebrations in Abu Dhabi are sensitive to the losing driver, and while one of Piastri and Norris will leave the year with their F1 dreams shattered, there are unlikely to be any ill feelings between the two stars.