Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris F1 title fight will lead to 'inevitable' on-track battle

Australia Broadcast Center

19 hours ago

A fight between McLaren teammates on track has been called "inevitable" by British driver Lando Norris, as he enters this weekend's race 10 points behind partner, and world championship leader, Oscar Piastri.
Melbourne-born Piastri has been terrific through nine rounds, winning five grand prix to Norris's two.
Norris has been a consistent performer throughout the season, not finishing a grand prix lower than fourth and securing two wins.
The Brit's win at the season opener in Australia, where Piastri spun late and finished ninth, is the furthest the two have been split in 2025.
After defending world champion Max Verstappen finished 10th at the Spanish Grand Prix two weekends ago, leaving him 49 points off Piastri, the drivers' championship fight appears to be down to the two McLaren racers.
Asked ahead of this weekend's Canadian Grand Prix, Norris said he and Piastri have been open about their desire to become world champion and knowing that each other's path to the title will cross throughout the year.
"I think we've actually been quite open in saying at some point, something is probably going to happen," Norris said in Montreal.
"We just have to be ready for that. I think both Oscar and myself know that, we're competitive, we want to beat each other but the main thing is we stay strong together as a team. But everything is in the open, everything is obvious, everything is known between us.
"We both want to win, we both want to beat each other, but at the end of the day there can only be one person and that will be whoever performs the best over the course of the year."
There was a moment between the McLaren drivers during qualifying in Spain, when Norris got in the slipstream of Piastri's car to increase his speed at the start of a flying lap.
Piastri was heard over the radio calling Norris's move "cheeky", but any animosity was hosed down by team principal Andrea Stella.
'We always tell our drivers like, 'don't leave anything in the back of your mind, anything, throw it out, say what you think'. In this case I think that Oscar's comment was to highlight a situation that we didn't discuss before," Stella said following the incident in Spain.
'In itself, it's not anything too controversial, but we sort of did not discuss that before and we don't want to surprise our drivers with situations that we didn't discuss before, so a little bit to take on for the team rather than for the drivers."
Piastri was able to put that moment aside to qualify on pole in Barcelona, then drive a flawless race to claim the win.
Despite a huge focus on the intra-McLaren battle in 2025, Piastri has taken a longer-term view of his battle with Norris.
The Australian said the team planned on being at the front of the F1 field for many years, meaning he and Norris would hopefully be battling for race wins and world titles beyond 2025.
"We want this to be the case for many years to come and the best way to protect that is by having a very strong team around both of us," Piastri said.
"We're aware that whatever happens in the championship this year, or how things go, is much bigger than just this season and potentially defines our whole career.
"We're very aware of that fact, of course we still want to beat each other and win a world championship but we know that there's a bigger picture as well."
ABC Sport will have a live blog of the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix from 2am, AEST, on Monday, June 16.