Oscar Piastri’s Baku wobble has given Lando Norris a sniff — and David Brabham noticed
For most of 2025, Oscar Piastri has worn the look of a driver with the season on a string. Then Baku happened.
A scruffy qualifying crash, a jump-start that triggered anti-stall, a drop to last, and finally a brush with the barriers that finished the job — Azerbaijan was the first weekend this year where Piastri looked human. It didn’t cost him a title lead outright, but it did punch a hole in the aura that’s been building around McLaren’s calm assassin.
David Brabham, son of three-time World Champion Jack and one of Australia’s sharpest racing minds, admitted he did a double-take. “It was a surprise to see Oscar make such mistakes,” he said. “I think this could give Lando hope; it shows that pressure is starting to build and that Oscar can be cracked after all.”
That’s the nub of it. Norris has spent much of this season living in the shadow of his teammate’s consistency, inches off the same apexes but often a step behind when it mattered most. Monza was a reminder that the balance at McLaren isn’t fixed — Norris led home a 2-3 there with Piastri third — and Baku pushed the door open a touch further when Norris could only manage seventh. The damage to Piastri’s points margin? Contained, strangely. The damage to the feeling that he was untouchable? Less so.
Australia has only produced two Formula 1 World Champions: Jack Brabham (1959, 1960, 1966) and Alan Jones (1980). Piastri’s attempt to add his name to that short, serious list has been built on the kind of neatness that tends to survive bad days. One rough Saturday, one jumpy clutch bite, one race-ending kiss with the wall doesn’t undo a campaign — but it does change the temperature inside a title fight, especially one contained within the same garage.
Brabham’s advice for Norris was blunt and, frankly, accurate: there’s no lever to pull on the other side of the garage. “He has to get the most out of himself, because that’s the only way he can beat Oscar,” he said. Hoping for the other guy to blink isn’t a strategy, but it counts as an opportunity when he does.
And yet Brabham also suggested the stumble might be precisely what Piastri needed. “Oscar has made mistakes now,” he said. “Maybe that was even necessary. Now he can regroup, focus, and come back stronger for the rest of the season.”
If you’ve watched Piastri long enough, you know that’s not wishful thinking. His brand is recovery via process: circuit walk, debrief, simulator, clean slate. The real test is psychological, not mechanical. Does the next qualifying out-lap arrive with a whisper of caution, or exactly the same decisiveness he had before Azerbaijan? That, more than any set-up tweak, will decide whether Baku is a footnote or a pivot point.
McLaren’s role is equally delicate. This is a title bid balanced on a friendly rivalry, the kind that can mutate quickly if the stakes climb. The team’s messaging has been good all year: let them race, protect the points, keep both cars in the window. Baku doesn’t change that script, but it does bring the race-start procedures, the bite point checks, and the risk tolerance in Q3 into sharper view. Everyone will feel the edges a bit more now.
The irony? Piastri’s shocker arguably spared him a bigger points swing because Norris didn’t turn it into a podium. That will irritate the Briton and hearten the Australian in equal measure. But if this season has proved anything, it’s that neither driver needs much to flip a weekend. The margins are tight enough that a tenth found on Saturday can snowball into 10 points on Sunday.
So no, Piastri hasn’t fallen off. He’s been grazed — publicly, painfully, and in a way that invites questions only he can answer. Norris, meanwhile, has exactly what he’s craved since the opening flyaways: visible proof that this isn’t a one-horse race. As Brabham put it, “If Lando seizes his moments, everything can change.”
The next few rounds will tell us if Baku was a blip or a break in the rhythm. Either way, the fight inside McLaren just got a little more interesting — and Australia’s long wait for another world champion is very much alive, only now with a bit more drama baked in.
