Piastri searching for rhythm as Norris seizes control of McLaren’s title fight
Oscar Piastri cut a thoughtful figure in São Paulo. He’s still quick — blindingly quick at times — but the Australian knows speed alone isn’t enough when the margins shrink to millimetres and missteps snowball into weekends that get away from you.
“A lot of things are going wrong,” he admitted after a scrappy few days at Interlagos. Then came the other half of the sentence McLaren will cling to: there are still “flashes of really strong pace.”
A month ago, Piastri looked like the calm hand on the wheel in this first all-McLaren title duel since the team’s more combustible 2007 vintage. He’d left Zandvoort 34 points clear of Lando Norris. Now, with three rounds to run, he trails his teammate by 24 — a 58-point swing that’s flipped the narrative and, bluntly, the balance of power.
The results sheet tells the story. A podium at Monza was Piastri’s last visit to the rostrum. Baku brought a retirement. Singapore flashed promise and P4. Then came a string of fifth-place finishes, including São Paulo, where his Sprint unravelled on a treacherous wet kerb that also snagged others. Austin didn’t help — a Sprint tangle with Norris ended both drivers’ short Saturday. It’s all been little paper cuts that add up to real pain in a championship run-in.
Through it, Piastri’s been honest about where it’s slipping. He felt on top of the car on Friday in Brazil; by Sunday, he didn’t. “Things have not been going easily, that’s for sure,” he said. “There were moments where I felt very comfortable. Practice came much more easily again. It kind of went away from us a little bit through the weekend.”
That’s the part McLaren will need to solve fast. On long runs this season, the car has tended to come alive; over one lap, it’s often been potent. But setup direction is a knife-edge, and Piastri suggested it moved away from him as parc fermé locked the team in. “Even just our pace as a team, I don’t think was as strong as it was on Friday, and the car kind of went in a direction I wasn’t a big fan of,” he said. Add the Sprint crash — more setback than scandal — and Sunday’s task got heavier.
None of this erases the raw material that put Piastri into this fight in the first place. He’s been measured, sharp in traffic, and genuinely fast across a range of tracks. But Norris has strung the weekends together, and that’s what tells in November. With a 24-point cushion, per the latest standings on the 2025 Formula One World Championship page, the Briton is undeniably the favourite from here. He’s wrung big points from messy Saturdays and turned middling grids into meaningful Sundays. That kind of relentlessness is often what cracks a title rival, even more than outright pace.
Piastri doesn’t look cracked — just frustrated. The key now is execution. Minimise the odd mistake. Keep the garage aligned on car direction. Get the Saturday foundation right, because it’s been Saturday, not Sunday, that’s bleeding him dry. If the speed he keeps referencing turns up all weekend, he can put Norris under pressure again. If it remains a Friday-only phenomenon, he’ll run out of runway in a hurry.
There’s noise swirling around any intra-team title contest — set-up conspiracies, perceived favours, and all the usual storm-in-a-paddock-cup. It’s background hum. What matters is that McLaren has built the field’s most complete package more often than not, and both drivers know the stakes. The team can’t afford a fracture line this late; the drivers can’t afford another Sprint that bites.
Piastri’s final word in Brazil was as telling as anything: it’s there, he said — the feeling, the speed, the confidence — just not there enough. “It’s about trying to make sure I’ve got that all the time.”
That’s the task. Three rounds, 24 points, and one teammate who’s suddenly found his stride. The title’s still on the table. But the margin for “flashes” has gone.
