While Oscar Piastri is expecting to return to a level playing field, he is “there to support Lando Norris” warns David Coulthard, who says Piastri may get his rewards.

That being said, when Coulthard faced that situation at McLaren, said rewards never came from Mika Hakkinen.

‘What goes around, hopefully will come around’ for Oscar Piastri, but…

Additional reporting by Elizabeth Blackstock

As Norris grew into a more serious threat to Max Verstappen’s Drivers’ Championship push, McLaren warmed to the idea of putting their support behind the Brit with Piastri ready to play the supporting role. However, with Verstappen virtually ending Norris’ title hopes in Brazil, Piastri is hoping to return to more even footing with Norris going forward.

“Pretty much, yes,” Piastri told media including PlanetF1.com in Las Vegas in regards to he and Norris being equal again. “There’s still some very specific scenarios where I might be needed to help out, but for the very large majority of situations, it’s back to how it was.

“The Drivers’ Championship picture is very slim, and the Constructors’ Championship is certainly not over for us. It’s certainly not a done deal, so that’s definitely the biggest thing.

“It’s a very specific few scenarios that maybe I’ll still help out, if that’s what I’m asked to do, but I’m going into the weekend trying to win.”

However, Coulthard – who claimed 12 of his 13 F1 wins with McLaren – believes that McLaren, as part of growing accustomed to their position challenging at the front in F1 2024, settled on Piastri being the “support” to Norris.

Speaking on the Red Flags Podcast, Coulthard began: “I’ve already said, and of course, people within the team who I know well, and I know the DNA of that team from my time there, they may see it differently, and of course, they’ve got more information at their disposal, but I feel that their performance this year came as a surprise.

“I think they came into the year, Max is winning a bunch of races, and they’re going, ‘We’re still rebuilding. We’re more competitive. ’25, ’26 is where we’re really going to be challenging for world titles’. So I think they were a little bit surprised just how good they were come mid-season.

“And with that surprise came, ‘Oh, my God. How do we do this?’ They weren’t as match fit as Red Bull when it came to making, let’s say, bold decisions.

“I think they’ve got on top of it, but I think that Budapest was just awkward. It was awkward for the drivers, it was awkward for us in commentary. It was awkward for Oscar.

“But I think they’ve kind of got through that now, and everyone understands Oscar is there to support Lando. I’m sure he doesn’t love it, but he’s paid there to drive their car.

“And what goes around, hopefully will come around.”

F1 2024 head-to-heads going into Las Vegas GP

👉 F1 2024: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

👉 F1 2024: Head-to-head qualifying record between team-mates

However, it will be of little comfort to hear that did not necessarily happen for Coulthard when he played the supporting role to McLaren’s two-time World Champion Mika Hakkinen.

“As it happens, I never got the victories back from Mika,” said Coulthard, “he moved over to give me a third place once.”

McLaren need Norris and Piastri scoring maximum points as they look to secure a first Constructors’ Championship win since 1998. With three rounds to go, they lead the way by 36 points over Ferrari.

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