Oscar Piastri has revealed the repercussions he and McLaren teammate Lando Norris might have faced if their 2025 Formula 1 title battle had gotten “nasty”.
The Australian opened up a sizeable margin across the first half of last year’s campaign, after a scintillating start which saw him more at one with the MCL39 compared to Norris.
By the return of F1 from its summer break, Piastri was 32 points clear at the top, having won in Zandvoort with Norris retiring.
But Norris regained form and stole a march on his papaya partner, eventually winning the title at the final round in Abu Dhabi, as Piastri finished third behind Max Verstappen.
The pair were involved in some testy moments across the season, most notably in Canada, when Norris collided with Piastri and took himself out of the race, and in Singapore, when the pair touched at the start.
This opened up a media narrative that the pair were very much engaged in an intra-team relationship full of needle.
But the Australian has explained that their dynamic within the Woking-based squad was largely unaffected by the fact both of them were fighting for the title.
“We get asked about our relationship as teammates quite a lot,” Piastri told the High Performance podcast.
“And I think probably it was actually better at the back end of last year than it was, you know, say, the first six months that we were getting to know each other, just because we know each other more. And we spend so much time around one another every year.
“So it really didn’t change much.
“Because I think we both knew the situation we were in of trying to beat each other and only one of us could win. We knew all of that. But it never, it never got nasty.
“And I think that’s a really important thing, because I think it would have been very easy for last year to have got nasty.
“And well, there would have probably been, if it really got bad, the question of whether one of us was even sat here doing this interview wearing orange.
“But I think just the team dynamics is so important to protect going forward.
“Obviously we’ve not quite started this year the way we want, but it would have been so easy for the battle of last year to make it look 10 times worse and 10 times worse for a long time. So I think we both knew that as well.”
Oscar Piastri reveals willingness to share during Norris title battle
A common symptom of fractious relations within a team is often how there be a hesitance to share information and data with the other, but Piastri and Norris continued to do just this, despite the high prize at stake.
“You can’t hide, and it goes the opposite way as well,” Piastri explained.
“You know if you’re in that position where someone else has done something and you go, I need to work out how to do that, you want as many tools at your disposal as you can get.
“So, yeah, I think everyone probably has their little moments where they go, ‘OK I want to keep that one to myself’, but at the end of the day, if you start going down that route, eventually it’ll bite you when you probably the least want it.”
Piastri will return to action this weekend in Miami, likely full of confidence of producing a dcecent performance after taking second place in Suzuka last time out, underlining McLaren’s rejuvenation.
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