Should McLaren back Norris or Piastri? Our F1 writers have their say

Norris should follow Piastri’s example and be easier on himself – Jake Boxall-Legge
Across the most recent eight rounds of this year’s championship, Piastri has added 126 points to his name, while Norris trails slightly having accrued 116. You can argue the toss over who deserved the Hungary win; Piastri’s opening stints were stronger, but Norris made the decision difficult in his final stint with exceptional pace. However, there was no question over who was quicker at Spa.

The area that has separated Piastri and Norris thus far has been tyre management. Norris, with four years’ extra experience of massaging his Pirelli tyres over a race stint, had carried the upper hand into 2024 with his conversion of early management into searing late-race pace. But the Australian is converging and sits within a hair’s breadth of becoming his equal on that front. And Norris knows this.

McLaren should have already won more than two races this season. Strategies have not straddled the perfect line between risk and conservatism, and pace has arrived too late into a race to make a difference. That Norris didn’t win in Barcelona and Hungary came down to fumbled starts, and his first-lap shakes continued at Spa when he took the exit of La Source too wide and lost critical momentum.

Piastri, meanwhile, is much more assured. There’s a detachedness behind the wheel, one that entwines with his affable and down-to-earth personality. He seems to be able to compartmentalise his human emotions from the act of racing, demonstrated on his team radio with a calmness – almost bordering on dry humour. He accepts he’ll make mistakes and also accepts that he can recover from them, while Norris tends to deal in self-flagellation, which seems to bring his mood down even further to create a cycle.

It’s very clear that Piastri is learning from Norris in how to take a tyre stint to the next level, and his outright pace is already on his team-mate’s level. Carry that beyond the summer break, and we can start to consider that Piastri might have the upper hand.

For Norris to assert himself as team leader once again, he could do with a few lessons from his younger team-mate in being a little easier on himself. Not calling himself ‘stupid’ would be a good place to start.

McLaren must follow through on its brave equal driver culture – Filip Cleeren

Oscar Piastri, McLaren F1 Team, Lando Norris, McLaren F1 Team, celebrate in Parc Ferme after locking out the front row

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

When Lando Norris was presented the opportunity to return Oscar Piastri his Hungarian Grand Prix lead, or defy team orders and win for himself, there were two possible outcomes.

The first is what transpired at the time, even though Norris’ delayed swap took the shine off what should have been a straightforward 1-2, while robbing himself of the opportunity to re-attack Piastri.

The second scenario would have led to Norris taking his second grand prix victory and denying his younger team-mate a first. He would also have reduced his deficit to Max Verstappen by seven points, and would trail by 71 points going into the summer break instead of 78.

But at what cost? It would have destroyed the trust Norris had built up in the team over the last five years, damaged his relationship with Piastri, and those two elements may have well cost him much more than those seven points in the long term.

The reason I’m bringing that up is because we are just one race further along from Hungary, and not much has changed.

Verstappen still has a handsome lead, even increasing it in Spa-Francorchamps, and it seems fanciful to suggest that as rivals teams keep taking away points form each other, Norris can find the type of Verstappen-esque early 2024 domination to turn the tide in the drivers’ championship.

McLaren is still a team building up to becoming that championship-winning machine, as we have seen with various mistakes over the past two months. That also includes drivers.

Norris has made his fair share of unforced errors recently, which he naturally slated himself for, but he has already shown he is the real deal, albeit a diamond that needs some polish here and there.

Piastri has stood out by being more cold-blooded than Norris despite his relative lack of experience, but he too isn’t the finish product yet, although his impressive level of performance in only his second season bears the question of just how high his ceiling will be.

Right now, McLaren’s focus should be on ironing out those errors, improving its car, and helping both Norris and Piastri become the best versions of themselves. You don’t do that by favouring one over the other before it is absolutely inevitable, and tanking morale in one side of the garage as a result.

Time will tell if McLaren’s culture can survive two equal drivers where other teams in the past have failed, but now is not the time to give up on it just yet. Back one driver too early, and the fallout could be irreparable.

Norris already knows where Piastri is operating differently – Alex Kalinauckas

Oscar Piastri, McLaren MCL38, leads Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar

“Oscar just seems happier to not push and can get more out of the car by not trying as hard, let’s say.”

Lando Norris told me that at Barcelona last month. He was just a few weeks on from celebrating his maiden F1 triumph in Miami, but in true Norris fashion was zeroing in on remaining areas where he wants to improve. Specifically, this related to cutting out errors on the limit in qualifying. But it is pertinent to the discussion kickstarted by Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko, somewhat craftily even in a distant title challenge for Max Verstappen, saying “he’s getting better from race to race and it looks like he’s mentally the stronger driver [at McLaren]”.

My colleagues have discussed Piastri’s cool temperament already. That plays into Norris’s point, as Piastri just gets on with everything McLaren needs to succeed against its varying opposition in 2024, but mainly against Red Bull. In one critical area, he seems to have the edge, which backs up Marko’s point.

Because the mistakes are still coming from the McLaren drivers. This doesn’t detract from the team’s impressive year-on-year gains, its impressive reliability this season nor of course that it has now scored podiums at 10 successive races. But on Sunday at Spa, driver errors made the critical difference.

For Norris, this was his La Source gravel-strike and Carlos Sainz botched pass. For Piastri, it was going long in his pitbox and imperilling his front jackman at his second stop. At Silverstone, where it was Norris’s similar error that grabbed most attention, Piastri also stopped slightly too long at both his services.

But, putting it simply, Piastri made fewer errors last Sunday and that boosted his result. Balanced against this was how Norris still led him in qualifying. And when discussing tyre management – the area where McLaren wanted Piastri to improve and was happy with the response it got for 2024 – Norris still had that clear edge in the final stint the previous week at Budapest, where Piastri was slightly wayward at times.

It’s swinging between two excellent team-mates, and two new F1 winners, but Piastri’s inexperience is his trump card. This suggests he’s still got room to improve, where that calmness and current lower error count should pay him back well as it combines with ever more confidence.

McLaren’s near-impossible task: keeping both drivers happy – Ben Hunt

Oscar Piastri, McLaren F1 Team, pole man Lando Norris, McLaren F1 Team, in Parc Ferme

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

The more I watch Oscar Piastri, the more I am impressed with how well he is doing at McLaren. For the best part of his time with the squad, he’s been sat in Norris’s shadow going about his business and learning from his team-mate.

He has done so without any fuss or drawing any attention to himself and, in my opinion, is now close to level with Norris in terms of ability, particularly with his race craft. Piastri has not been faultless – in the Belgian Grand Prix he overshot his pitbox and nearly ran over his front jackman – but his mistakes are decreasing compared to 2023, his rookie season.

His maiden victory in F1 came at the Hungarian Grand Prix amid the team orders saga. Irrespective of whether McLaren was right to tell Norris to swap positions, the way Piastri handled the situation was incredibly professional.

He was calm on the radio to his race engineer, a steely iciness that takes emotion out of the equation and often leads to better decision-making.

I get why McLaren would want to consider prioritising Norris over Piastri in the second half of this season, for the Brit has a 32-point lead over his team-mate in the drivers’ championship and needs all the help he can get to overturn Max Verstappen’s 78-point advantage at the top of the championship.

However, in the long run, McLaren – and Norris too – has a potential headache on its hands as it juggles having arguably the strongest driver pairing on the grid. There will be more instances like in Hungary where they will be fighting each other for wins.

The key is likely to be which driver keeps his cool best, and at the moment that looks like Piastri. It is now up to McLaren to ensure they manage the relationship to avoid any disharmony developing and somehow keep both drivers happy – a near-impossible task!