'If you think it's between me and Oscar, you are silly'
Oscar Piastri has arrived in Spain to find the race to the world championship has just got a little bit hotter.
The Australian's hard-earned lead at the top of the standings, which stood at 16 points barely a month ago, has been whittled away to just three.
McLaren team-mate Lando Norris is breathing down his exhaust pipes, and the British driver has promptly upped the pressure on his colleague by warning him that he is far from being his only threat.
Piastri had looked in control after topping the podium in Miami on May 4, his fourth winning drive in six races.
But when Norris led home the field from pole in Monaco last Sunday for his second win of the season, with Piastri third, that advantage had shrunk to three points.
Piastri still has a 25-point lead over third-placed Max Verstappen, who is dreaming of five successive world titles, but the way the 24-year-old Melbourne racer has been reeled in does send a signal to the rest of the pack.
That's a point not lost on Norris, 25, the early-season pacesetter who was talking at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya, where he could regain the overall lead in Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix on a track where Piastri will have few fond memories of his 2024 tilt.
Norris said: "Mathematically I feel like probably the whole grid can win the championship at the minute so if you think it is just out of me and Oscar then you are a bit silly.
"There are plenty of opportunities. I expect Ferrari will get better as the season goes on.
"And Max can still win. Come on! We are racing Max every weekend. He's been on the podium several times, he has won races, he beat us in Imola fair and square because he was quicker.
"I don't know what possibly makes you think that it's only between the McLaren drivers."
Norris finished second, to Verstappen, in Catalonia last year. Piastri was seventh, admitting afterwards it had been "a bit of a difficult weekend, obviously".
A new technical directive will be introduced at Barcelona to clamp down on flexible front wings which some believe has contributed towards McLaren's dramatic rise.
The British team won the constructors' championship last season and have claimed six out of the eight wins so far in 2025.
However, when asked if he was concerned McLaren will be affected by the rule change, Norris said: "No, not at all. There are tweaks here and there, but nothing that will change how we have to do it."
Meanwhile veteran Fernando Alonso is refusing to set a date for his retirement from Formula One.
"You have to feel when the time comes. And I don't feel it yet," the Aston Martin driver said ahead of his home race at the Spanish Grand Prix.
"I stopped Formula 1 once in 2018, and I came back because I needed (to) so the next time I stop I have to be sure."
Alonso, who will celebrate his 44th birthday in July, has been racing in F1 since 2001 and won world titles in 2005 and 2006.
His contract with Aston Martin is to run until the end of the 2026 season. He has already said that he intends to remain committed to the team after his driving career is over.
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