Oscar Piastri leads the world championship as the 2025 summer break comes to an end. He is determined to win the title with McLaren as he battles with teammate Lando Norris.
The Aussie has claimed six wins and four pole positions from the opening 14 races. Piastri has displayed incredible consistency in 2025, having finished off the podium only twice.
Since joining McLaren in 2023, the 24-year-old had been behind teammate Norris, most notably in qualifying. However, Piastri has taken a huge step forward this season and taken the fight to the other side of the garage,
CategoryLando NorrisOscar Piastri2025 points275284Grand Prix results77Grand Prix qualifying77Grand Prix wins56Grand Prix poles54Grand Prix podiums1212Best finish1st1stRetirements10Fastest laps54Grand Prix points finishes1314Sprint results12Sprint Qualifying03Sprint wins10Sprint poles01Sprint podiums23The 2025 F1 teammate head-to-head battle of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri
His steely demeanour has paid dividends as he keeps himself consistently fighting at the front, while mistakes in qualifying and races have proved costly for his teammate. Alan Jones says Piastri is better at ‘politics’ than Norris, having previously criticised the Brit for being mentally ‘weak’.
However, as the summer break ends, Piastri has a fight on his hands for the 2025 crown. After winning three of the last four races, Norris has closed the gap to just nine points, setting up an intense battle for the championship.
Photo by Andrea Diodato/NurPhoto via Getty ImagesOscar Piastri’s ‘biggest message’ to McLaren is he wants to fight for a championship for his whole career
With Max Verstappen 97 points behind Piastri, the title fight looks set to be a two-horse race between the McLaren drivers. The Woking outfit have not won a drivers’ championship since Lewis Hamilton in 2008.
The MCL39 has been the dominant force of the 2025 season as they sit on 559 points with 10 rounds to go. The championship seems a certainty for McLaren, and Piastri wants the team to keep that up.
Speaking to The Race, the Aussie wants to fight for a championship for his whole career, or at least ‘for the next few years’. He has stressed that the team must continue to give him a competitive car.
He said: “The biggest message is that I want the chance to fight for championships for, ideally, my whole career, but certainly for the next few years, because I think we really have the potential to do that for the foreseeable future.
Position Drivers’ Championship PointsPts 1 284 2 275 3 187 4 172 5 151 6 109 7 64 8 54 9 37 10 27
“We have a quick car, and essentially, the way of bringing the team down is by causing issues internally, and obviously crashing into each other and causing friction between the team-mates is probably the number one way of achieving that.
“I’m certainly aware that to achieve that goal of mine of being able to fight for drivers’ championships for many years to come, we need the team around us to be able to give us the car, and that comes with people being in the right state of mind, happy to be working at McLaren.
“So that is always there. Obviously, when you’re wheel to wheel with someone in a race, it’s probably a bit further back in mind.
“But when you’re out of the car, there is always that sense of, ‘As much as I want this championship this year, I don’t want to win it at the expense of potentially not winning more’.”
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Photo by Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty ImagesMcLaren risk internal problems with Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris’ title fight
With just nine points separating the McLaren drivers heading into the Dutch Grand Prix this weekend, the battle for the title between Piastri and Norris is set to intensify. They have been given the freedom to fight on track, but that has given the team some issues.
Piastri and Norris collided in Canada, with the latter retiring from the race. McLaren have since reminded the duo of their rules of engagement, but even then, they have almost come to blows on several occasions.
Piastri knows McLaren must stay ‘united’ amid the title battle, but he is determined to beat his teammate. The Aussie has produced some aggressive moves in a bid to get ahead, with Piastri almost crashing into Norris in Hungary in the closing stages.
Andrea Stella does not want to ‘destroy’ McLaren internally, but he runs the risk of that happening with Piastri and Norris battling on track. Ultimately, only one of them will be champion, and they must be prepared for that reality.