Latest news with #Piastri
New York Times
2 days ago
- Automotive
- New York Times
Lando Norris has finally matched Oscar Piastri for one thing all F1 champions need
Maybe Lando Norris just needs nose scars to accompany particularly significant Formula One wins. He got his first while enthusiastically celebrating his Miami 2024 breakthrough. After his recent 2025 British Grand Prix victory, it was a fan-shield screen breaking and felling a photographer that caused the cut to his nose. At least Norris could laugh about both. Winning will do that to a person. Advertisement But what happened at Silverstone earlier this month was more substantial than just Norris securing his first F1 triumph at his home race, as big as that is for any driver. His 2024 campaign was transformed by Miami, where McLaren finally completed the upgrade journey it'd been on since Austria 2023 to really topple Red Bull. It's too soon to say Silverstone will do the same to his 2025 campaign, but it was different to what had come before in one key aspect. It was Norris's first win this season when he's been second best to Oscar Piastri across an event overall. And winning on off-weekends is a key pillar of all title-winning seasons. Piastri has been the one usually winning on his bad days this season. His Jeddah and Miami victories this campaign both could've gone to Norris (although in each, when it came to battling Red Bull's Verstappen, Piastri forced the issue superbly both times). Canada also might've gone very differently had Norris not messed up yet again in qualifying. But Norris has simply never done this before in F1, winning when he's not the fastest driver. In his three post-Miami wins in 2024, Norris was clearly the best driver on those weekends. Admittedly, he could have won more last season but for circumstances conspiring against him. Back in Canada, when Norris's misjudgment while battling Piastri late on led to him crashing instantly out, 2025's firmly-established narrative had centered on the Briton's many mistakes. Had he been the one penalized for braking too sharply under the safety car (actually in both restarts, it transpired), that only would've intensified. For Piastri, this was his first major error since crashing out in the Australian opener (and his off there was initially just a bit bigger than Norris's in the returning rain lottery). And Norris capitalized. Advertisement It would've been fascinating to see how things might've played out between them in the closing stages at Silverstone without Piastri's penalty coming into play. After all, there was just 1.3 seconds to separate them ahead of those final stops for slicks. And, with Norris no longer tire-saving as he had been in the early stages when Piastri was blowing the field away at the start, there was seemingly very little in it. Piastri was pushing hard to keep his teammate out of DRS and any tiny mistake on the drying surface could've been the decisive factor. But then, when the race contained Nico Hülkenberg ending his 239-race wait for an F1 podium, wanting a better end to the contest up front was being greedy. You can't have everything, as Christian Horner has found out to his considerable cost at Red Bull last week… What's also interesting about this Norris revival is what has changed about the McLaren MCL39 in recent races. Back in Canada, the team introduced a front suspension tweak that made this part slightly thicker on Norris's car (Piastri has eschewed it so far). This was aimed at fixing the numbness Norris had been feeling through his 'understanding of where the grip lies comes through my hands and through the steering wheel,' as he said ahead of the Silverstone weekend. The suspension changes should make the steering feel ever so slightly heavier, but that in turn should pay Norris back with a better feeling of how his car will react under braking and what the tires will do through corners where big braking is required. In the aftermath of his Silverstone win, Norris insisted 'people talk about (the suspension change) probably too much' and 'it's something the team believed might give me more feeling and I just roll with that.' And his Canada and Silverstone Q3 mistakes bare this position out — it isn't a wholesale switch from imperfect to perfect. Advertisement But at the very least the change seems to be offering Norris further mental reassurance, along with the work he has done with his engineering team to try and iron out those costly qualifying moments that peppered the first half of his 2025. 'I certainly felt more in Austria. The car is always all over the place in Canada, so it's hard to judge things there,' Norris replied when I asked about the impact of this development at Silverstone. 'But certainly in Canada, I felt like we unlocked a little bit more, but I also don't feel like I'm still back to the level necessarily that I was at last year with (steering) feeling. But it's a complicated one at the same time because a lot of other things have changed too. So, as a team, we're working hard. Obviously, I'm working very hard with my team to understand more things and tried more stuff in the simulator, and expand my vocabulary of driving.' McLaren's work behind the suspension tweak came after Norris made it 'clear to the team' that he 'certainly wasn't happy' with how the MCL39 was feeling through his steering wheel compared to the MCL38. Doing this has actually made McLaren's season more complicated, in that it now needs to manufacture twice the amount of these front suspension components — the older spec that Piastri prefers, plus the new ones for Norris. All of this will mean a cost-cap hit. But Norris is clearly feeling boosted by McLaren's willingness to make such a change. And it seemingly hasn't decreased the development output overall in the team's quest to try and make F1's best car even better. At Silverstone, it introduced a major floor upgrade that was only assessed in FP1 — on both cars. This is chiefly aimed at making the MCL39 better in high-speed turns, where Red Bull's RB21 has a rare, clear edge. Expect to see it back on for the next race. McLaren is confident that its practice experiments at Silverstone showed this part to be working as it wanted. And now the best test of trying to improve in high-speed corners is next up at Spa. This is the last track featuring high-speed turns before F1 heads to track types where McLaren should utterly dominate: the lower-speed Hungaroring and Zandvoort layouts. Advertisement Spa's rapid nature also means the pressure is still on Norris if he is to finally get back level with Piastri on points before the summer break because the championship leader, currently eight points ahead of his teammate, is just mighty in high-speed corners. This comes down to his smooth, precise style minimizing confidence-sapping rear-end snaps. Hungary and the Netherlands follow either side of the summer break and their long-corner-packed layouts should swing this constant pendulum of a two-horse season more firmly towards Norris. Hanging on against Piastri at Spa would be a decent outcome for him. Nicking more success Silverstone-style would go a long way to seeing his 2025 campaign and its narrative transformed. But, given how good he was other than at safety car restarts last time out, Piastri really doesn't have to do much to stop all that in its tracks. (Top image: Jay Hirano/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The Print
3 days ago
- Automotive
- The Print
Plot twists, penalties & papaya dominance, F1's 2025 season is pure chaos in motion
While Formula One is traditionally centred around pole positions, tyre management and strategy, the 2025 season has produced some viral and memorable moments. New Delhi: With its mayhem and chaos, Formula One in its current season has felt less like a motorsport championship and more like a reality TV show with viewers clutching as if they were witnessing Netflix docu-series Drive to Survive in real time. First, McLaren, dubbed the team in papaya, caused a stir when Oscar Piastri bounced back from a disappointing Australian Grand Prix by converting pole position into an assured victory. Then, Lando Norris followed up by clinching a podium just nine seconds behind Piastri. Real drama unfolded when Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were disqualified from the race as their cars failed to clear post-race technical checks. Leclerc's car was found to be 1 kg lighter than the minimum weight requirement, while Hamilton was disqualified due to excessive wear on the skid block—the same issue with the wooden plank beneath the car that had previously cost him a second-place finish at the 2023 United States Grand Prix when he was driving for Mercedes. Alpine's Pierre Gasly finished 11th but was also disqualified for failing post-weight check-ins. If Shanghai was the opening act, Bahrain was the ultimate plot twist. One of the highlights was when McLaren's rising star Piastri clinched pole position at the onset and converted it into a spectacular win at the Bahrain Grand Prix. His teammate Norris, who ascended from sixth to third position, quite literally planted his flag and dipped. Meanwhile, Red Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda and Williams' Carlos Sainz were caught in a minor collision, which forced Sainz to retire from the Grand Prix, a race he later admitted had been 'frustrating'. Also Read: The F1 movie is visually revolutionary. That still can't make up for a weak storyline F1 never stays quiet for long Bahrain delivered the chaos, Miami brought the heat and then Monaco added the glitz. Drama unfolded at the Miami Grand Prix where Red Bull's Max Verstappen was handed a 10-second penalty for an unsafe release into the path of Andrea Kimi Antonelli of Mercedes. It wasn't just messy, but also shattered the momentum with Verstappen being dropped down the order and injecting fresh chaos into an already volatile midfield. Monaco in May delivered its trademark glitz but fell short on fireworks. Norris claimed pole and handled the race start with clinical precision, reaffirming that McLaren's resurgence wasn't just a flash in the pan. While practice saw its share of drama–including crashes from Hamilton and Racing Bulls rookie Isack Hadjar–race day played out with surprising restraint. Up front, it was a clean shuffle among the usual suspects: Leclerc, Norris and Verstappen held onto formation like chess pieces on a million-dollar board. No wild overtakes, no rain curveballs, just textbook precision on Formula One's most unforgiving circuit. The Austrian Grand Prix came in hot–or rather locked up and reckless–as Antonelli ploughed into Verstappen at Turn 3 of the first lap. It wiped both of them out and an early safety car was triggered. Verstappen was fuming over the team radio but attempted to keep it cool after the race. Antonelli took the blame upon himself and Red Bull's golden weekend ended before it even began. Then came Silverstone, or the British Grand Prix, where rain, with penalties and redemption arcs arrived in dramatic fashion. The first shakeup came when Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso was spun at turn 11 following a clumsy collision with Liam Lawson of Racing Bulls, prompting a safety car that bunched up the field. A record was broken and Norris claimed a home win. Meanwhile, Piastri was slapped with a 10-second penalty for safety car infringement. There was no end to the excitement. Sauber's Nico Hülkenberg finally landed his first-ever podium after 239 starts in Formula 1, the longest any F1 driver has had to wait for a podium result. He celebrated it with a LEGO trophy, which looked straight out of a toy aisle. However, the F1 world was shaken later in the week with the sudden departure of Christian Horner, who acted as the team principal for Red Bull Racing. He led the team for nearly 20 years. Apart from this the latest speculation surrounded Verstappen leaving Red Bull to join Mercedes for the upcoming Formula One season. Pushed on whether he would set a deadline for Verstappen to decide, Mercedes team chief Toto Wolff confirmed 'conversations behind closed doors' were ongoing. George Russell, the Briton who drives for Mercedes, claimed that he has not been given a new Mercedes contract beyond the current season due to the team having 'ongoing talks' with Verstappen. So far, this season has been 30 percent strategy, 70 percent storyline and 100 percent unpredictable. Drivers are switching teams, penalties are flying and fans are hanging on to the drama by a thread. And the best part? We're only halfway done. (Edited by Sugita Katyal) Also Read: As F1 world grapples with Red Bull boss Christian Horner's exit, fans have one question—why
Sydney Morning Herald
4 days ago
- Sport
- Sydney Morning Herald
Cracks have appeared in Piastri's composure. How he responds could decide the world title
While we'll need to wait until the upcoming back-to-back rounds in Belgium (July 27) and Hungary (August 3) to better assess the latter, what's more explainable are the reasons for Piastri's reaction and the context behind them, not the reaction itself. Loading 'I deserved a lot more than what I got' Piastri had played his cards perfectly at Silverstone as the capricious weather accentuated every stereotype about an English summer. From second on the grid on a track still soaked from pre-race rain, Piastri harried pole-sitter and four-time reigning world champion Max Verstappen through the spray in the early laps before overtaking the Red Bull star on lap eight and bolting to a seven-second lead by lap 11, by which time Norris had passed Verstappen for second place. Worsening rain saw the safety car deployed to neutralise the race, with Norris – who endured a slow pit stop – falling behind Verstappen before the race resumed three laps later, Piastri backing the pack up behind him as the safety car intervention ended before scampering away. Half a lap later, when an unsighted Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls) ploughed into the back of Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes), the safety car was called back into action, which proved crucial. Loading When racing resumed on lap 21, Piastri – caught by surprise by the safety car's lights switching off late in the lap to indicate the race was set to re-start – braked hard to warm up his brakes for the resumption; behind him, Verstappen moved to his right to take evasive action, and the cars behind Verstappen scattered to avoid running into one another in the spray. Race stewards immediately investigated the incident and Piastri – who was found to have braked from 218km/h to 52km/h – was deemed guilty of 'clearly' breaching Article 55.15 of F1's sporting regulations, which states: 'From the point at which the lights on the [safety] car are turned out, drivers must proceed at a pace which involves no erratic acceleration or braking, nor any manoeuvre which is likely to endanger other drivers or impede the restarts.' After Verstappen spun at the restart and dropped back to 10th, Norris sat behind his teammate in second place with both drivers needing one pit stop to complete the 52-lap distance; Piastri led until lap 40 when his final stop – where his car sat motionless for 10 seconds before his team could change tyres – handed Norris a lead he wouldn't relinquish. In a championship fight of such small margins – and for the fact Norris engineered a 14-point swing through nothing more than being the beneficiary of Piastri's momentary misjudgment and poor fortune – Piastri's mood was, in the moment, explainable. 'I hit the brakes [and] at the same time I did that, the lights on the safety car went out, which was also extremely late,' he explained of the lap-21 restart. 'And then, obviously, I didn't accelerate because I can control the pace from there. And, yeah, you saw the result. I didn't do anything differently to my first restart – I didn't go any slower.' After a race in which he'd mastered the tricky conditions and muscled his way past Verstappen with authority, Piastri was in no mood to celebrate a 10th podium in 12 races this season. 'It obviously hurts at the moment,' he said afterwards. 'I know I deserved a lot more than what I got, I felt like I drove a really strong race. Ultimately, when you don't get the result you think you deserve, it hurts – especially when it's not in your control.' A two-horse race for the title Piastri's post-race rancour is unlikely to linger; the Australian is far too practical for that, and the two-week break between Silverstone and Spa-Francorchamps comes at an opportune time for a driver who, this time last year, was yet to win a Formula 1 race. Fast-forward 12 months and Piastri has led the championship standings since round five in Saudi Arabia, his third victory of the season, coming on a weekend in which Norris crashed in qualifying and relinquished the advantage he'd held since winning the season-opener in Melbourne. Loading For the past seven rounds, Piastri's margin over the rest has been as slim as three points (after Monaco, which Norris won), and peaked at 22 points after Norris ran into the back of Piastri and retired in Montreal – the only race this season where there hasn't been at least one McLaren driver on the podium. With Verstappen a championship contender in name only – the Dutchman recovered to fifth at Silverstone, but is now 69 points off the championship lead, nearly the equivalent of three race wins – the 2025 season is now a Piastri v Norris intra-team fight for the title, given the pace advantage McLaren's MCL39 machine has over the rest, and the sweeping regulation changes set for 2026 that will act as a hard reset for the championship and see rival squads soon prioritise next season over this one. It's a set of circumstances that means small slip-ups – Piastri running wide and getting stuck in the wet grass in Australia, Norris' Jeddah qualifying smash and his Canada collision with his teammate – carry big consequences for a team that hasn't had a drivers' world champion since Lewis Hamilton in 2008. Piastri's Silverstone penalty wasn't his first error of the season, and – given the stakes – isn't likely to be his last, with both of McLaren's drivers entering uncharted territory. Momentum will ebb and flow. Norris bounced back after his Montreal gaffe to win the next two races – even if one of those victories was gift-wrapped by his teammate – and 2025 shapes as a season that will be determined by each driver's worst days, not their best ones.
The Age
4 days ago
- Sport
- The Age
Cracks have appeared in Piastri's composure. How he responds could decide the world title
While we'll need to wait until the upcoming back-to-back rounds in Belgium (July 27) and Hungary (August 3) to better assess the latter, what's more explainable are the reasons for Piastri's reaction and the context behind them, not the reaction itself. Loading 'I deserved a lot more than what I got' Piastri had played his cards perfectly at Silverstone as the capricious weather accentuated every stereotype about an English summer. From second on the grid on a track still soaked from pre-race rain, Piastri harried pole-sitter and four-time reigning world champion Max Verstappen through the spray in the early laps before overtaking the Red Bull star on lap eight and bolting to a seven-second lead by lap 11, by which time Norris had passed Verstappen for second place. Worsening rain saw the safety car deployed to neutralise the race, with Norris – who endured a slow pit stop – falling behind Verstappen before the race resumed three laps later, Piastri backing the pack up behind him as the safety car intervention ended before scampering away. Half a lap later, when an unsighted Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls) ploughed into the back of Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes), the safety car was called back into action, which proved crucial. Loading When racing resumed on lap 21, Piastri – caught by surprise by the safety car's lights switching off late in the lap to indicate the race was set to re-start – braked hard to warm up his brakes for the resumption; behind him, Verstappen moved to his right to take evasive action, and the cars behind Verstappen scattered to avoid running into one another in the spray. Race stewards immediately investigated the incident and Piastri – who was found to have braked from 218km/h to 52km/h – was deemed guilty of 'clearly' breaching Article 55.15 of F1's sporting regulations, which states: 'From the point at which the lights on the [safety] car are turned out, drivers must proceed at a pace which involves no erratic acceleration or braking, nor any manoeuvre which is likely to endanger other drivers or impede the restarts.' After Verstappen spun at the restart and dropped back to 10th, Norris sat behind his teammate in second place with both drivers needing one pit stop to complete the 52-lap distance; Piastri led until lap 40 when his final stop – where his car sat motionless for 10 seconds before his team could change tyres – handed Norris a lead he wouldn't relinquish. In a championship fight of such small margins – and for the fact Norris engineered a 14-point swing through nothing more than being the beneficiary of Piastri's momentary misjudgment and poor fortune – Piastri's mood was, in the moment, explainable. 'I hit the brakes [and] at the same time I did that, the lights on the safety car went out, which was also extremely late,' he explained of the lap-21 restart. 'And then, obviously, I didn't accelerate because I can control the pace from there. And, yeah, you saw the result. I didn't do anything differently to my first restart – I didn't go any slower.' After a race in which he'd mastered the tricky conditions and muscled his way past Verstappen with authority, Piastri was in no mood to celebrate a 10th podium in 12 races this season. 'It obviously hurts at the moment,' he said afterwards. 'I know I deserved a lot more than what I got, I felt like I drove a really strong race. Ultimately, when you don't get the result you think you deserve, it hurts – especially when it's not in your control.' A two-horse race for the title Piastri's post-race rancour is unlikely to linger; the Australian is far too practical for that, and the two-week break between Silverstone and Spa-Francorchamps comes at an opportune time for a driver who, this time last year, was yet to win a Formula 1 race. Fast-forward 12 months and Piastri has led the championship standings since round five in Saudi Arabia, his third victory of the season, coming on a weekend in which Norris crashed in qualifying and relinquished the advantage he'd held since winning the season-opener in Melbourne. Loading For the past seven rounds, Piastri's margin over the rest has been as slim as three points (after Monaco, which Norris won), and peaked at 22 points after Norris ran into the back of Piastri and retired in Montreal – the only race this season where there hasn't been at least one McLaren driver on the podium. With Verstappen a championship contender in name only – the Dutchman recovered to fifth at Silverstone, but is now 69 points off the championship lead, nearly the equivalent of three race wins – the 2025 season is now a Piastri v Norris intra-team fight for the title, given the pace advantage McLaren's MCL39 machine has over the rest, and the sweeping regulation changes set for 2026 that will act as a hard reset for the championship and see rival squads soon prioritise next season over this one. It's a set of circumstances that means small slip-ups – Piastri running wide and getting stuck in the wet grass in Australia, Norris' Jeddah qualifying smash and his Canada collision with his teammate – carry big consequences for a team that hasn't had a drivers' world champion since Lewis Hamilton in 2008. Piastri's Silverstone penalty wasn't his first error of the season, and – given the stakes – isn't likely to be his last, with both of McLaren's drivers entering uncharted territory. Momentum will ebb and flow. Norris bounced back after his Montreal gaffe to win the next two races – even if one of those victories was gift-wrapped by his teammate – and 2025 shapes as a season that will be determined by each driver's worst days, not their best ones.
Newsweek
08-07-2025
- Automotive
- Newsweek
Nico Hulkenberg's Clever Response to Oscar Piastri's LEGO Trophy Remark
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Nico Hulkenberg's clever response to Oscar Piastri's question about his LEGO trophy stood out in the post-race press conference at Silverstone. The top three finishers of the British Grand Prix received trophies made from LEGO, given the Danish brand's partnership with Formula One. Compared to the golden RAC (Royal Automobile Club) trophy that has been handed to British GP race winners since 1973, a piece of memorabilia that they had to return, drivers will be allowed to keep the LEGO trophies that carry a similar look. Race winner Lando Norris received a LEGO trophy with gold bricks that were exclusively created and won't be put on sale to the public. Runner-up Piastri and third-place finisher Hulkenberg received white trophies. The Sauber driver secured his maiden podium after 239 race starts since his F1 debut in 2010. As a result, the entire F1 community celebrated his iconic win. He was asked by Piastri in the post-race press conference how it felt after 15 years to receive an F1 podium trophy made out of LEGO, which can be pulled apart and which could potentially go on sale. Third placed Nico Hulkenberg of Germany and Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber on the podium with his trophy during the F1 Grand Prix of Great Britain at Silverstone Circuit on July 06, 2025 in Northampton,... Third placed Nico Hulkenberg of Germany and Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber on the podium with his trophy during the F1 Grand Prix of Great Britain at Silverstone Circuit on July 06, 2025 in Northampton, England. MoreHulkenberg's answer was mature and funny. He hinted that the LEGO trophy didn't affect his celebration, as he chose to focus on the positive. He said: "I love LEGO. "It's good my daughter can play with it too. "You always gotta see the bright side. But a bit of silver or gold would have been nice too. But, you know I won't complain." Hulkenberg started the Silverstone race from P19 and raced his way through several yellow flags in the rain to secure the third spot. Speaking on his achievement after the race, he said: "I always knew, you know, we have it in us, I have it in me somewhere. I mean, what a race, coming from virtually last, doing it all over again from last weekend. It's pretty surreal, to be honest. "Not sure how it all happened, but obviously, crazy conditions, mixed conditions. It was a survival fight for a lot of the race. "I think we just were really on it, the right course, the right tyres, in the right moment, made no mistakes. And, yeah, quite incredible." Addressing his battle with Lewis Hamilton in the last stage of the British GP, he added: "Yeah, I mean today I was in denial 'till probably the last pit stop. "And then when I heard we gapped Lewis quite a bit with the one extra lap, I was like, OK, you know, this is good. This is some breathing space. "But then, you know, he was catching quite quickly. So, yeah, the pressure was there. It was an intense race."
