Christian Danner backs Oscar Piastri to close out 2025 title: “The pendulum is swinging his way”
You can feel it in the paddock: this title fight is being won in the quieter moments. Oscar Piastri leads the Drivers’ Championship by nine points over Lando Norris with 10 races to run, and while Norris has thrown down three wins from the last four, ex-F1 racer Christian Danner thinks the smart money sits with the man in the other McLaren.
“He is less prone to making mistakes,” Danner told German outlet ran. “Not only has he proven this, it is also evident in his manner: calm, thoughtful, focused. He hardly ever loses his cool.” In Danner’s view, that temperament tilts the balance. “For me, the pendulum is clearly swinging in his direction. But Norris’ fans need not be sad. It’s so close that it will probably only be decided in the last race.”
That sounds about right given McLaren’s recent form. The team has ransacked the calendar in mid-season, locking out the top two steps at a canter and turning the Constructors’ title into a formality. Norris held the early lead this year, but Piastri punched back with four wins in five to take command before the break — and despite Norris’ surge, the Australian has kept his nose in front.
Danner isn’t blind to the ebb and flow. “Success is always the best means to more success,” he said of Norris’ hot streak. But he also suggested the Brit has benefitted from a sprinkle of fortune in recent rounds — Silverstone and Budapest name-checked — and luck, he pointed out, is a fickle teammate.
“Psychologically, the momentum may be with Norris at the moment, but that doesn’t bother Piastri at all. He’s sticking to his style.”
And that’s the crux of this duel. They’re polar opposites off-track. Piastri is unflappable, considered, almost poker-faced. Norris wears the lot — the joy and the frustration — right where everyone can see it. It makes him compelling, but it also invites critique. 1980 world champion Alan Jones, never one for euphemism, recently labelled Norris “weak,” saying he dwells “on some of the problems he’s had rather than the positives.”
Piastri, meanwhile, keeps inviting comparisons with Alain Prost — the ultimate cool operator — whether he likes it or not. Even Prost himself leaned into it at Goodwood. “I like the way he behaves, a little bit like me, thinking about when to do the right manoeuvre for overtaking and being a little bit more clever,” the four-time champion said.
That’s not to say there’s daylight between them on raw pace. There isn’t. Across this run, the timing sheets have shown a pair of drivers operating at the same ferocious level, often within a whisker of each other. Which is why Danner’s call isn’t about outright speed. It’s about what happens when the walls start closing in — when tyre deg creeps up on you at Turn 12, when the Safety Car throws your plan off, when your teammate undercuts you and there are 20 laps to sort your head out.
Mathematically, only Oliver Bearman, Franco Colapinto and Jack Doohan are out of the title fight, but the reality is simpler: it’s Piastri vs Norris, and McLaren vs the rest. The title may well come down to a handful of points and one or two split-second decisions. On that battleground, Danner is betting on the driver who makes fewer mistakes and wastes fewer Sundays.
There’s another layer to this. Norris has carried the aura of inevitability at times this summer; that can be intoxicating inside a garage. But it can also be brittle. Piastri doesn’t really do aura. He does execution. And when the calendar tightens, execution tends to travel best.
“Personally, I believe that Piastri will win in the end,” Danner said. You don’t have to agree. But as the flyaways loom and the air gets thinner at the top, you can see why an old racer would go with the bloke who keeps his heart rate down and his elbows in — until the exact moment he needs them out.
