Former IndyCar driver James Hinchcliffe believes the harmonious relationship between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri will start to \u201cfracture\u201d as the season nears its end.<\/p>\n
Just seven rounds remain in the 2025 season, with Piastri leading Norris by 25 points.<\/p>\n
The pair have clashed once this year at the Canadian Grand Prix, however it was quickly brushed under the carpet as Norris instantly accepted blame.<\/p>\n
They have also complied with team orders as McLaren has highlighted its desire to treat both drivers fairly and present equal opportunities.<\/p>\n
Last time out in Baku, Piastri crashed in qualifying and the race and walked away from a race weekend with zero points for the first time this year.<\/p>\n
Hinchcliffe has suggested a change in tone will start to emerge from the McLaren camp as the title inches ever closer for the two contenders.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re now starting to see those two drivers really appreciating and understanding that we’re on the home stretch of this season,\u201d Hinchliffe told the F1 Nation podcast.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re less than a third of the way to go. A first drivers\u2019 championship for either guy is up for grabs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis uncharacteristically friendly title rivalry that we have going on and we’ve seen up to this point, I think it’s going to start to fracture a little bit as the pressure really mounts.\u201d<\/p>\n
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella stated after the race weekend that Piastri has presented himself as the most consistent driver on the grid this year.<\/p>\n
Having enjoyed a mostly error-free campaign en route to leading the standings with seven rounds to go, Hinchcliffe highlighted his surprise with Piastri’s run of mistakes throughout the Baku event.<\/p>\n
\u201cCertainly the mistakes that Oscar made [were] very uncharacteristic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe false start was kind of the beginning of the end for him and then just frankly, miscalculating it and overcooking it into turn five, ending up in the wall.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose ones are surprising, those ones are uncharacteristic, but overall, it was a tough weekend out there for every driver.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former IndyCar driver James Hinchcliffe believes the harmonious relationship between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri will start to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,827,830,828,831,829,826,813,823,825,806,805,824,803,804,822,85],"class_list":["post-164165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorsport","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}