‘Be selfish’: Pundits urge title leader Piastri to put elbows out as Norris keeps the chase alive
Oscar Piastri’s calling card this season has been clean, clinical execution. No drama, no noise — just a quietly relentless accumulation of points that’s put the McLaren driver at the sharp end of the 2025 standings as we head for the business end.
But neat and tidy only gets you so far in a title fight. And the noise around Piastri right now isn’t about pace; it’s about ruthlessness.
David Coulthard has been blunt about it. Speaking to Australia’s Code Sports, the former McLaren racer said the Australian may need to ditch the nice-guy reflex when the stakes are highest.
“Racing drivers are selfish bastards,” Coulthard said. “They’ve got to Formula 1 because they have their elbows out and they’ve fought their way into that sport.”
Within McLaren’s walls, the message all year has been clear: no designated No.1, no scripted swapping, race hard but fair. The team has leaned into a “let them race” philosophy with Piastri and Lando Norris, letting the championship picture take shape on merit rather than a pit wall decree.
Coulthard’s view? If the door opens, walk through — even if it ruffles feathers in papaya. “They both want to win, and therefore there will be a point where, to be crude about it, they’ll go and say ‘bollocks to the team, I want this victory for myself.’ You can’t stage manage who’s going to score the goal, whoever’s got the ball is going to take a crack.”
Right now, the ball is with Piastri. He’s weathered a couple of sticky weekends — Monza and Baku weren’t his finest — yet he still fronts the drivers’ table heading into the final run-in. The margin’s not massive, and it might’ve been wider had he been a fraction more hard-nosed when it mattered.
Monza gave us the case study. Norris suffered a slow stop, fell behind Piastri on the road, and McLaren asked the Australian to hand back track position after Norris had led the bulk of the race. Piastri complied. It was the team-friendly call; it wasn’t necessarily the title-friendly one. The difference between P2 and P3 isn’t seismic, but in a three-way picture that still includes Max Verstappen, those little swings can turn into big ones.
Mika Hakkinen, a man who knows a thing or two about closing out titles in a McLaren, agrees the calculation changes when the calendar runs out. “You need to be selfish, you need to think about yourself, what is best for you,” the two-time champion told Code. “Sometimes in the working environment it doesn’t look so nice because he’s, of course, a young driver and you don’t have so much experience yet in Formula 1. But [Piastri] will only get better. He’s a very consistent driver, which is a powerful tool, and he’s a bloody quick driver.”
None of this is to say McLaren should rip up its playbook. It’s worked. The MCL39 has been on the money across a wide range of circuits, and the dynamic between the two drivers — competitive but contained — is a far cry from the combustible pairings of old. The Constructors’ picture reflects that. But titles at this time of year are often decided in the grey areas between “team game” and “killer instinct.”
Norris, for his part, isn’t buying the idea he’s letting chances slip. He’s stayed in the fight through consistency, and he’s been very clear: he doesn’t feel he’s leaving meat on the bone in the chase. He’s quietly confident, a driver who knows how quickly momentum can turn with one standout Sunday.
The complicating factor is Verstappen, who has kept Red Bull in the conversation and will pounce on any McLaren hesitation. If Piastri and Norris police each other too diligently, they risk inviting the No. 1 into places he has no business visiting. That’s the nightmare scenario on the papaya pit wall: lose the drivers’ crown by being too courteous.
McLaren has insisted all season there’s no favorite, and nothing in the policy needs to change to win this thing. But the psychology might. At some point, a title challenger has to make a call for himself. Every great champion, even inside the most team-first culture, has had a moment where they took, rather than asked.
Piastri’s temperament has been a weapon this year; you don’t want to blunt it by asking him to morph into something he isn’t. Still, when the laps are dwindling and the points look like they’ll decide themselves by single digits, instinct beats etiquette. And if that means a little less deference and a little more edge — the kind that turns a polite pass back at Monza into a firm “catch me if you can” — then so be it.
Title fights don’t wait for consensus. They reward the driver who reads the room and goes first. Piastri’s earned the right to be that driver. Now we find out if he’s willing to take it.
