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Sydney Morning Herald
09-05-2025
- Automotive
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘We were genuinely the slowest team': The skill and science behind Piastri's rise to title favourite
It sounds – feels – unthinkable. But as McLaren have bounced back to their former status as one of F1's kingpins after more than a decade in the wilderness, Piastri has risen with the tide. With a quiet determination and a paucity of public proclamations, Piastri has tackled his weaknesses one by one, methodically, rapidly. With the planets aligning, his world championship lead of 16 points is the largest by an Australian since Mark Webber, who is now Piastri's manager, in 2010. How did Piastri get from second to last in Miami 2023 to championship favourite in 2025? 2023: The fast track from hopeless to history In truth, Miami 2023 was no outlier. When the F1 roadshow arrived in Austria in July for the ninth round of that season, McLaren had managed just 17 points across the opening eight races, four of Piastri's five points coming when he avoided the late-race carnage of the final laps of his first home race in Melbourne where he finished eighth. McLaren sat sixth in the 10-team constructors' championship standings arriving in Spielberg, but things were about to change – fast. Norris debuted a revised aerodynamic package for the team's MCL60 machine – the team only had one available, and it went to Norris as its best-performing driver – and the rebooted McLaren flew, Norris qualifying and finishing fourth. Piastri got his hands on the upgraded floor and sidepods for the next race and reaped a similar immediate benefit, qualifying third and fighting hard with Verstappen before an unfortunately-timed safety car intervention dropped him to fourth behind Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes at the chequered flag. A maiden visit to Suzuka in Japan in October simultaneously showed his rapid adaptation to F1, and the lessons he still needed to learn. At the searingly fast old-school circuit built in the 1960s, Piastri was out-qualified only by Verstappen. He took his maiden podium the following day with third place, but was disappointed to fall 17 seconds behind teammate Norris – in an identical car – in just 53 laps, his lack of F1 experience evident as his race pace and tyre management saw him drop back. By the end of the season, Piastri had taken a pole for a sprint race (Qatar), won a sprint (also Qatar) and taken two grand prix podiums en route to scoring 97 points and finishing ninth; as a rookie, only Hamilton's 2007 debut season (109 points, albeit in 17 rounds, not 22) was more prolific. Piastri's speed was impressive, but learning when to deploy it and in what quantities was a work in progress. Norris, by then in his fifth season, scored 205 points and finished sixth in a drivers' championship dominated by Red Bull. 2024: Problems solved, problem emerges After burying himself deep in data and working on his race-pace weaknesses, Piastri finished three of the first seven grands prix in fourth place, narrowly missing out on breaking the hoodoo of no Australian driver ever finishing on the podium in Melbourne with fourth at Albert Park. And then came Miami. From sixth on the grid, Piastri surged forward and looked set for his maiden victory success before pitting from the lead on lap 27, Norris inheriting first place. After a crash back in the pack allowed Norris to pit under safety car conditions and retain his advantage, Piastri later clashed with Ferrari's Carlos Sainz jnr and needed another pit stop to replace a damaged front wing before coming home in 13th. Piastri's time was to come, and soon. After Verstappen had won seven of the opening 10 races, Red Bull began to fall back to the pack as McLaren – 114 points behind Red Bull after seven rounds – came on strong. Piastri won in Hungary in July by bullying his way past Norris into the first corner, then again in Azerbaijan in September when he opportunistically passed Charles Leclerc and soaked up 31 laps of pressure from the Ferrari driver for his second career victory. It showed the sustained race pace that was his Achilles' heel as a rookie had been solved, and demonstrated the robustness in wheel-to-wheel combat that had underpinned his junior career. Verstappen converted his mid-season advantage into a fourth straight drivers' title, but McLaren won the constructors' crown for the first time since 1998, the 26-year interval between titles the longest in F1 history. After finishing all 24 races in the top-10 points-paying positions, Piastri was fourth in the drivers' championship with 292 points, 82 points and two places behind Norris. In the 11 rounds from the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix (round seven) to Azerbaijan (round 17), Piastri scored more points (181) than any other driver on the grid, a period where he took two wins among six podiums and qualified on the front row five times. Piastri's rookie rough edges had been sandpapered away, but his one-lap pace took a step back, Norris out-qualifying the Australian 20 times in 24 grands prix and, as a result, often having track position in races and strategic priority in pit stops. The average margin between the teammates – 0.223 seconds in Norris' favour – was worse than Piastri's debut campaign. 'I'm not looking for a lot, I'm looking for a little bit,' he said in a pre-season interview with the official event program for the Australian Grand Prix. 'That's not just going to come by trying to drive faster; there's science that needs to go into that. If I can qualify a bit higher up and give myself a better chance at the start of races, that's hopefully going to make life a little bit easier.' 2025: Connecting the dots as championship beckons Pre-season testing in Bahrain in February showed McLaren had taken a leap forward with their MCL39 machine – its one-lap pace on a par to anything other than a Red Bull driven by Verstappen, its ability to preserve its tyres and go harder for longer evident from day one. It was a position of advantage that, for Piastri and Norris, was doubly important. With Formula 1 set for a seismic regulatory shift for 2026 – next year's cars will feature new engines with a greater emphasis on electrical power and will be narrower and lighter, among other changes – teams starting 2025 on the back foot were likely to shift their focus to next season, being prepared to take some pain in the present to prioritise the future. McLaren promptly locked out the front row of the grid for the Australia season-opener before the Albert Park home race driver curse bit Piastri on race day, running wide in a rain shower to turn a sure-fire podium into ninth as Norris won. Since then, Piastri has barely put a foot wrong, winning the following weekend in Shanghai, then in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Miami for a 39-point turnaround over Norris and the series lead in just five rounds. Loading More importantly, qualifying – Piastri's off-season priority – has turned around, the Australian out-pointing Norris 5-3 (six grands grix, plus sprint qualifying sessions in China and Miami) to date, with an average advantage of 0.125secs. Miami brought back memories of McLaren from a bygone era; the 37-second gap back to George Russell (Mercedes) in third was McLaren's most dominant 1-2 result since Fernando Alonso and Hamilton finished 1-2 in Monaco in 2007. Obstacles to McLaren turning 2025 into an intra-team fight are few, if the opening six rounds are any guide. The early returns from the nascent Ferrari/Hamilton union have been largely underwhelming. Mercedes signed 18-year-old rookie Kimi Antonelli in the 40-year-old seven-time champion's place. Verstappen has been a one-man band for Red Bull, scoring 99 of the team's 105 points. Aston Martin, among others, have both eyes on 2026. It all points to 2025 as a two-horse, one-team race, and one Piastri is – now – ready to win. 'It's always been close between us [Piastri and Norris], it's going to be a good battle,' Piastri said. 'There will be weekends where Lando is stronger, weekends where I am stronger. We know pretty much exactly how one another drives … we know our strong points, maybe some of our weaker points. You have more information, but it goes both ways.
The Age
09-05-2025
- Automotive
- The Age
‘We were genuinely the slowest team': The skill and science behind Piastri's rise to title favourite
It sounds – feels – unthinkable. But as McLaren have bounced back to their former status as one of F1's kingpins after more than a decade in the wilderness, Piastri has risen with the tide. With a quiet determination and a paucity of public proclamations, Piastri has tackled his weaknesses one by one, methodically, rapidly. With the planets aligning, his world championship lead of 16 points is the largest by an Australian since Mark Webber, who is now Piastri's manager, in 2010. How did Piastri get from second to last in Miami 2023 to championship favourite in 2025? 2023: The fast track from hopeless to history In truth, Miami 2023 was no outlier. When the F1 roadshow arrived in Austria in July for the ninth round of that season, McLaren had managed just 17 points across the opening eight races, four of Piastri's five points coming when he avoided the late-race carnage of the final laps of his first home race in Melbourne where he finished eighth. McLaren sat sixth in the 10-team constructors' championship standings arriving in Spielberg, but things were about to change – fast. Norris debuted a revised aerodynamic package for the team's MCL60 machine – the team only had one available, and it went to Norris as its best-performing driver – and the rebooted McLaren flew, Norris qualifying and finishing fourth. Piastri got his hands on the upgraded floor and sidepods for the next race and reaped a similar immediate benefit, qualifying third and fighting hard with Verstappen before an unfortunately-timed safety car intervention dropped him to fourth behind Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes at the chequered flag. A maiden visit to Suzuka in Japan in October simultaneously showed his rapid adaptation to F1, and the lessons he still needed to learn. At the searingly fast old-school circuit built in the 1960s, Piastri was out-qualified only by Verstappen. He took his maiden podium the following day with third place, but was disappointed to fall 17 seconds behind teammate Norris – in an identical car – in just 53 laps, his lack of F1 experience evident as his race pace and tyre management saw him drop back. By the end of the season, Piastri had taken a pole for a sprint race (Qatar), won a sprint (also Qatar) and taken two grand prix podiums en route to scoring 97 points and finishing ninth; as a rookie, only Hamilton's 2007 debut season (109 points, albeit in 17 rounds, not 22) was more prolific. Piastri's speed was impressive, but learning when to deploy it and in what quantities was a work in progress. Norris, by then in his fifth season, scored 205 points and finished sixth in a drivers' championship dominated by Red Bull. 2024: Problems solved, problem emerges After burying himself deep in data and working on his race-pace weaknesses, Piastri finished three of the first seven grands prix in fourth place, narrowly missing out on breaking the hoodoo of no Australian driver ever finishing on the podium in Melbourne with fourth at Albert Park. And then came Miami. From sixth on the grid, Piastri surged forward and looked set for his maiden victory success before pitting from the lead on lap 27, Norris inheriting first place. After a crash back in the pack allowed Norris to pit under safety car conditions and retain his advantage, Piastri later clashed with Ferrari's Carlos Sainz jnr and needed another pit stop to replace a damaged front wing before coming home in 13th. Piastri's time was to come, and soon. After Verstappen had won seven of the opening 10 races, Red Bull began to fall back to the pack as McLaren – 114 points behind Red Bull after seven rounds – came on strong. Piastri won in Hungary in July by bullying his way past Norris into the first corner, then again in Azerbaijan in September when he opportunistically passed Charles Leclerc and soaked up 31 laps of pressure from the Ferrari driver for his second career victory. It showed the sustained race pace that was his Achilles' heel as a rookie had been solved, and demonstrated the robustness in wheel-to-wheel combat that had underpinned his junior career. Verstappen converted his mid-season advantage into a fourth straight drivers' title, but McLaren won the constructors' crown for the first time since 1998, the 26-year interval between titles the longest in F1 history. After finishing all 24 races in the top-10 points-paying positions, Piastri was fourth in the drivers' championship with 292 points, 82 points and two places behind Norris. In the 11 rounds from the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix (round seven) to Azerbaijan (round 17), Piastri scored more points (181) than any other driver on the grid, a period where he took two wins among six podiums and qualified on the front row five times. Piastri's rookie rough edges had been sandpapered away, but his one-lap pace took a step back, Norris out-qualifying the Australian 20 times in 24 grands prix and, as a result, often having track position in races and strategic priority in pit stops. The average margin between the teammates – 0.223 seconds in Norris' favour – was worse than Piastri's debut campaign. 'I'm not looking for a lot, I'm looking for a little bit,' he said in a pre-season interview with the official event program for the Australian Grand Prix. 'That's not just going to come by trying to drive faster; there's science that needs to go into that. If I can qualify a bit higher up and give myself a better chance at the start of races, that's hopefully going to make life a little bit easier.' 2025: Connecting the dots as championship beckons Pre-season testing in Bahrain in February showed McLaren had taken a leap forward with their MCL39 machine – its one-lap pace on a par to anything other than a Red Bull driven by Verstappen, its ability to preserve its tyres and go harder for longer evident from day one. It was a position of advantage that, for Piastri and Norris, was doubly important. With Formula 1 set for a seismic regulatory shift for 2026 – next year's cars will feature new engines with a greater emphasis on electrical power and will be narrower and lighter, among other changes – teams starting 2025 on the back foot were likely to shift their focus to next season, being prepared to take some pain in the present to prioritise the future. McLaren promptly locked out the front row of the grid for the Australia season-opener before the Albert Park home race driver curse bit Piastri on race day, running wide in a rain shower to turn a sure-fire podium into ninth as Norris won. Since then, Piastri has barely put a foot wrong, winning the following weekend in Shanghai, then in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Miami for a 39-point turnaround over Norris and the series lead in just five rounds. Loading More importantly, qualifying – Piastri's off-season priority – has turned around, the Australian out-pointing Norris 5-3 (six grands grix, plus sprint qualifying sessions in China and Miami) to date, with an average advantage of 0.125secs. Miami brought back memories of McLaren from a bygone era; the 37-second gap back to George Russell (Mercedes) in third was McLaren's most dominant 1-2 result since Fernando Alonso and Hamilton finished 1-2 in Monaco in 2007. Obstacles to McLaren turning 2025 into an intra-team fight are few, if the opening six rounds are any guide. The early returns from the nascent Ferrari/Hamilton union have been largely underwhelming. Mercedes signed 18-year-old rookie Kimi Antonelli in the 40-year-old seven-time champion's place. Verstappen has been a one-man band for Red Bull, scoring 99 of the team's 105 points. Aston Martin, among others, have both eyes on 2026. It all points to 2025 as a two-horse, one-team race, and one Piastri is – now – ready to win. 'It's always been close between us [Piastri and Norris], it's going to be a good battle,' Piastri said. 'There will be weekends where Lando is stronger, weekends where I am stronger. We know pretty much exactly how one another drives … we know our strong points, maybe some of our weaker points. You have more information, but it goes both ways.
The Independent
06-02-2025
- Automotive
- The Independent
Lewis Hamilton trails Charles Leclerc on final day of F1 test as Ferrari times vs McLaren revealed
Lewis Hamilton has completed his third testing stint since joining Ferrari – but trailed teammate Charles Leclerc on the final day in Barcelona. The 40-year-old Briton, who drove the 2023 SF-23 car in Fiorano a fortnight ago and Barcelona last week, took part in a Pirelli tyre test on Tuesday and Wednesday at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Driving a modified version of last year's SF-24 car to fit the narrower 2026 tyres, Hamilton posted a fastest lap time of 1:15:93 over 87 laps on Tuesday. This time was just over a tenth-of-a-second quicker than Leclerc's fastest time over 86 laps – 1:16:06. However, both times were short of Lando Norris ' fastest lap in the MCL60 (McLaren 's modified 2023 car), which was 1:15:21 – though Norris did rack up 159 laps throughout the day. Yet on Wednesday, Leclerc topped the timesheet with a 1:14:971 after 74 laps of running. Oscar Piastri was almost a second behind with a 1:15:815, while Hamilton set a quickest lap of 1:16:759 – 0.8 seconds down on his fastest time on Tuesday. While lap times are largely irrelevant given each driver carried out different programmes on behalf of Pirelli, it is another box ticked for Hamilton as he acclimatises to a new team following 12 years and six world titles with Mercedes. The seven-time F1 world champion did crash the SF-23 in Ferrari 's behind-closed-doors test in Barcelona last week, though was said to be 'absolutely fine' following a shunt in sector three of the 4.6km circuit. It follows a trend of Hamilton crashing in pre-season tests ahead of his first season with a new team, as he did for McLaren in 2007 and Mercedes in 2013. This week, tyre manufacturer Pirelli's programme was focused on the development of their slick tyres, ahead of new engine and chassis regulations coming into force next year. The precise details of the drivers' compound use and run plans were not disclosed. Alpine will test for Pirelli next Thursday-Friday in Jerez, with McLaren and Mercedes also carrying out a day of testing each. On 2-3 March, Alpine and Williams will take part in further tyre testing for the manufacturer Meanwhile, Hamilton could take part in more private TPC (Testing of Previous Cars) sessions – likely to be at Ferrari's track in Fiorano – before the official pre-season test in Bahrain on 26-28 February. Ferrari officially launch their 2025 car – the SF-25 – on Wednesday 19 February, but will reveal their livery at the 10-team season launch event at The O2 Arena in London on 18 February. Hamilton's first race for Ferrari will be the season-opening Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park in Melbourne – a venue he has tasted success at two times – on 16 March. The race was confirmed this week to have a 3pm local start time (4am GMT).
The Independent
05-02-2025
- Automotive
- The Independent
Lewis Hamilton completes third F1 test stint as Ferrari times vs McLaren revealed
Lewis Hamilton has completed his third testing stint since joining Ferrari on Wednesday – with just over a month until his F1 debut for the Scuderia. The 40-year-old Briton, who drove the 2023 SF-23 car in Fiorano a fortnight ago and Barcelona last week, took part in a Pirelli tyre test on Tuesday and Wednesday at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Driving a modified version of last year's SF-24 car to fit the narrower 2026 tyres, Hamilton posted a fastest lap time of 1:15:93 over 87 laps on Tuesday. This time was just over a tenth-of-a-second quicker than Charles Leclerc 's fastest time over 86 laps – 1:16:06. However, both times were short of Lando Norris ' fastest lap in the MCL60 (McLaren 's modified 2023 car), which was 1:15:21 – though Norris did rack up 159 laps throughout the day. Hamilton and Leclerc shared duties once again on Wednesday, with McLaren's Oscar Piastri in the cockpit for the full day. Pirelli are yet to release today's timings. It is another box ticked for Hamilton, though, as he acclimatises to a new team following 12 years and six world titles with Mercedes. The seven-time F1 world champion did crash the SF-23 in Ferrari's behind-closed-doors test in Barcelona last week, though was said to be 'absolutely fine' following a shunt in sector three of the 4.6km circuit. It follows a trend of Hamilton crashing in pre-season tests ahead of his first season with a new team, as he did for McLaren in 2007 and Mercedes in 2013. This week, tyre manufacturer Pirelli's programme was focused on the development of their slick tyres, ahead of new engine and chassis regulations coming into force next year. The precise details of the drivers' compound use and run plans were not disclosed. Hamilton could take part in more private TPC (Testing of Previous Cars) sessions – likely to be at Ferrari's track in Fiorano – before the official pre-season test in Bahrain on 26-28 February. Ferrari officially launch their 2025 car – the SF-25 – on Wednesday 19 February, but will reveal their livery at the 10-team season launch event at The O2 Arena in London on 18 February. Hamilton's first race for Ferrari will be the season-opening Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park in Melbourne – a venue he has tasted success at two times – on 16 March. The race was confirmed this week to have a 3pm local start time (4am GMT).
