Oscar Piastri still doesn’t think he’s as fast as 31-podium F1 driver despite blistering 2025 start

Oscar Piastri is 16 points clear at the top of the Formula 1 world championship after another victory at the Miami GP last weekend. He’s clearly made another leap over the winter.

Piastri’s lead is even more impressive when one considers that he only finished ninth at the Australian GP after a heartbreaking spin from second place. He’s remarkably picked up 129 of the 141 points on offer since.

The 24-year-old has won four races already this year, tripling his career victory tally. No other driver has stood on the top step multiple times.

Piastri finished fourth in the standings last year, 145 points off Max Verstappen. But his progress, combined with McLaren’s continued ascent, makes him the clear favourite.

He could end Verstappen’s title streak at four, denying him Michael Schumacher’s record. Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris have all tried and failed to defeat him in that time.

Oscar Piastri rates his pace lower than McLaren teammate Lando Norris

Piastri and Norris featured in a video on the sport’s official YouTube channel where the drivers predicted their ratings in the F1 25 video game. The overall figure is determined by four factors – experience, awareness, racecraft and pace.

The ‘pace’ metric is calculated based on qualifying performance. It’s an indicator of a driver’s raw speed.

While F1’s yearly video is intended to be light-hearted, it’s also insightful. It forces drivers to give themselves scores for particular attributes.

Norris, who’s scored 31 podiums, was notably much more confident than Piastri when predicting his pace. He went for 96, while Piastri only gave himself an 89.

“I must be pretty high up there,” Norris said. “I must be, like, 96? If I’m not, burn it!”

Piastri replied: “I’m going to say 89.”

Incidentally, the game developers gave Norris 94, and Piastri 87, so both drivers made slight overestimates.

Zak Brown may regret the bold claim he’s just made about Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris

The interview took place at the Japanese GP, two weeks after Piastri’s converted pole in China. He’d outqualified Norris for the Sprint race too, having been less than a tenth adrift in Melbourne.

McLaren identified qualifying as Piastri’s biggest weakness at the end of last season. He lost 21-3 to Norris in the intra-team head-to-head.

But despite his apparent progress, he remains humble. The Australian leads Norris for 2-1 pole positions, but they’re tied at 3-3 overall, with Verstappen (three poles) the surprise Saturday star.

Zak Brown believes McLaren will avoid the ‘tears’ previously seen when two teammates have competed for the title. But he could live to regret his naive-sounding remarks, having accepted that a clash between his two drivers is inevitable at some point.