Headline: Piastri matches Webber’s win tally at Zandvoort — and tightens his grip on 2025 title race
Oscar Piastri left Zandvoort with a ninth career victory, a seven-win haul for the season, and a 34-point cushion over Lando Norris. That’s the scoreboard with nine to run, and it arrived on a day that threatened to be another McLaren one-two until the MCL39 coughed up a smoke signal and retired Norris in the closing laps.
It wasn’t flashy from Piastri. It didn’t need to be. He controlled what he could, stayed out of trouble in the orange haze, and let the race come to him when his team-mate’s car didn’t. Clinical, a touch ruthless, and — crucially, at this stage of the year — mistake-free. That’s how you win championships, or at least, how you build a wall of points that forces everyone else to swing for the fences.
The win also brought a neat bit of symmetry: Piastri now sits on nine grand prix victories, the same total as his manager, Mark Webber. The older Australian was beaming on Sky’s post-race show, praising a drive he called “magnificent” and framing it as a bigger moment for Australian motorsport. Webber name-checked the country’s standard-bearers — Jack Brabham, Alan Jones, Daniel Ricciardo — and sounded genuinely chuffed that the latest Aussie in the lineage is doing the heavy lifting so early in his career.
There’s plenty of banter between the two, by Webber’s own admission. That’s been part of the Piastri project since day one: a sharp, quiet driver with a precise touch on Sunday and an equally precise circle around him off-track. Webber’s competitive streak hasn’t gone anywhere either. Matching nine wins? Fine. Beating it? You can tell he’d love that even more.
As for the title picture, the momentum swing is obvious. A 34-point lead with nine races left doesn’t decide anything, but it does change the psychology. Norris has been the season-long foil and, on pace, there’s barely been daylight between the two McLaren drivers. But pace is only half the story. Reliability bit Norris in Holland, and Piastri banked. You don’t get style points in this sport, just points.
Webber, for what it’s worth, wasn’t putting the champagne on ice. He rattled through the hazards that remain: Brazil, where weather roulette tends to spin; Singapore, the jungle night with concrete never far from the racing line; Azerbaijan, the long straights and blind corners that punish tiny lapses. “Runs on the board,” he said, leaning on a cricketism, is where you want to be. And he’s right — this is the part of the year where you take what the calendar gives you and avoid giving anything back.
The McLaren narrative is now split-screen: on one side, a driver operating like a title favourite; on the other, a reliability gremlin that picked a terrible time to reappear. The team’s execution has been razor sharp all season, but close fights have a way of amplifying small cracks. Zandvoort may prompt some late-summer soul-searching in Woking’s engine and reliability briefings.
Still, if you strip away the smoke and the cautionary notes, the story in the Netherlands was simple enough. Piastri did what champions-in-waiting do. He matched the rhythm of a race that was drifting his way, closed the book when it opened for him, and walked out with another trophy — and a small slice of Australian racing history. Webber might not say it out loud, but he knows exactly what he’s looking at.
Next up: a run-in that features all the traps Webber mentioned and a few he didn’t. Street circuits, weather wildcards, and nerves. Piastri’s got the “runs on the board.” Norris needs a response. The rest of us get a title fight that suddenly feels a little more tilted — but far from settled.
