{"id":105035,"date":"2025-08-29T09:18:03","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T09:18:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/105035\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T09:18:03","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T09:18:03","slug":"f1-tension-builds-as-oscar-piastri-and-lando-norris-resume-title-fight-at-the-dutch-gp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/105035\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 tension builds as Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris resume title fight at the Dutch GP"},"content":{"rendered":"

ZANDVOORT, Netherlands (AP) \u2014 The Formula 1<\/a> title race is back and the tension is building.<\/p>\n

Ahead of this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix<\/a>, the first race in four weeks, Oscar Piastri is just nine points ahead of his McLaren teammate and title rival Lando Norris, who won three of the last four races before the mid-season break.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe intensity will naturally increase as we get closer to the end of the year, and I\u2019m ready for that,\u201d Piastri said Thursday.<\/p>\n

The Australian has won praise for his ability to stay cool in his first season as a true title contender, but he acknowledged that the nerves are there, even if they’re not always obvious.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe anyone that says they don\u2019t get nervous because I don\u2019t think that\u2019s possible, and I think it would be a bit weird if you weren\u2019t nervous,\u201d he said. \u201cUltimately the nerves can be good or bad and it\u2019s how you manage it that decides that. I think for me, being calm is part of who I am, but definitely I\u2019ve learned through the years that is how I get the most out of myself as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keeping the \u2018papaya rules\u2019 simple<\/p>\n

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A slow start actually ended up helping Norris win the last race in Hungary<\/a>. He had to take a gamble on his strategy and hit the jackpot by stopping once, instead of twice, to get ahead on track and then hold off his teammate on old tires.<\/p>\n

That prompted questions of how the situation fit McLaren’s stated aim of letting its drivers race each other for the title. Typically, the driver in the lead would get the preference on strategy.<\/p>\n

“Maybe it wasn\u2019t a perfect harmonic race between us as a team because it didn\u2019t fall exactly into the place with what we normally go by,” Norris said. \u201cIt\u2019s an example of what can happen in racing sometimes. I think we both want, as drivers, things not to be overly strict. We don\u2019t want to be told not to race.\u201d<\/p>\n

Piastri also favored keeping things simple and not letting McLaren’s \u201cpapaya rules\u201d get too complicated.<\/p>\n

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\u201cUltimately there are race situations where being the second car from the team on track … you\u2019ve got a lot less to lose,\u201d Piastri said. \u201cI think it would be unfair to neutralize that just because of wanting to be on the same strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Verstappen looks for rain \u2018chaos\u2019<\/p>\n

Max Verstappen says the Dutch crowd \u201cdefinitely brings a smile on my face when I\u2019m driving,\u201d but his title defense hasn’t given him much else to smile about.<\/p>\n

Verstappen is the best of the non-McLaren drivers but there’s still a gulf of 97 points separating him from Piastri. The Dutch driver said Thursday his aim is \u201cjust to try to make the best of it\u201d for the rest of 2025 and that he doesn’t have any real target in the standings.<\/p>\n

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Verstappen won the last wet race at Zandvoort in 2023 and his best hope of a fourth career win at his home GP might be the chance of rain affecting Saturday’s qualifying and Sunday’s race.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat always creates a bit of chaos, so we just need to see what happens,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP auto racing: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/auto-racing<\/a><\/p>\n

James Ellingworth, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ZANDVOORT, Netherlands (AP) \u2014 The Formula 1 title race is back and the tension is building. Ahead of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,33614,578,576,577,591,592,82,3826],"class_list":["post-105035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-dutch-grand-prix","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-lando-norris","tag-oscar-piastri","tag-sports","tag-verstappen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}