Norris and Piastri ask McLaren to dial down the content as title fight peaks
McLaren’s championship battle is officially in “less talk, more driving” mode. Lando Norris says he and Oscar Piastri have asked the team to cut back on joint social media videos as their head-to-head for the 2025 crown hits the business end.
The pair have been welded together on McLaren’s channels all season — post‑race debrief clips with Andrea Stella, playful bits from the garage, the usual churn that comes with a title-ready operation. But as the calendar flips to the final triple-header — Las Vegas, Qatar, Abu Dhabi — Norris made it clear priority one is the job in the cockpit, not the camera.
“The reason you see less videos is because we both asked to do less videos,” Norris said in the Las Vegas pre-event press conference. “We’re racing drivers. We want to come and drive, not make videos for social media, so that’s our request as drivers. But we still get made to do plenty.”
This isn’t a frost setting in. If anything, Norris insists it’s quite the opposite. Despite an intense intra-team campaign that’s seen both drivers rack up seven wins apiece in the dominant MCL39, the Briton — who nudged his advantage to 24 points after Brazil — said the relationship is “still better than it’s ever been.”
“It’s not because that’s just how it is, it’s because we both have a lot of respect for one another and we both understand the position we’re in,” he added. “We work for McLaren, we want the best for the team, we work very hard. And as drivers always do, you try and maximise your own performance more than anything. But then when we step out of the car, we can still have a joke, we still have laughs in our debriefs and we still enjoy everything away from the track.”
That balance — fierce on track, civil off it — has underpinned McLaren’s season. No silly theatrics, no sniping soundbites, and apparently fewer skits for the socials as the pressure mounts. It sounds simple, and in a title fight, that’s often the trick.
Norris also offered a window into why the duo click without needing to be attached at the hip. He admires Piastri’s cool head, a contrast to his own more visible emotions in the heat of battle.
“He’s very calm, down to earth, very relaxed, always looks just cool,” Norris said. “That’s something I admire quite a bit — how plain sailing he is with a lot of things. Always hard to read what mood he’s in. And I think probably for me, you see more visually the moods I’m in.”
They’re not exactly golf buddies — “not like I did with Carlos,” Norris noted — and he joked that even with Daniel Ricciardo back in the day, the pastime didn’t stick. But the working relationship? Rock solid. “We get along well, we still work together well and I think it’s still better than it’s ever been.”
The optics matter here. As the McLaren MCL39 continues to set the pace and the title picture narrows to orange versus orange, the team’s biggest threat is internal friction. So the drivers taking control of their time — and attention — is a quiet but telling move. Less content, more contentment.
From Vegas’ neon to Lusail’s lights and the twilight at Yas, the margins will be razor thin, the stakes immense, and the scrutiny relentless. McLaren’s two title protagonists are choosing to meet that with fewer cameras and the same old respect. It’s the grown-up way to win a world championship — whichever side of the garage it lands on.
