Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris may be establishing themselves as the best duo on the Formula 1 grid. They have the quickest car, but both are still performing at an elite level.
Even with Piastri’s heartbreaking mistake in Australia, McLaren enter the Bahrain Grand Prix 36 points clear of Mercedes at the top of the F1 championship. They’ve taken five podiums from a possible six.
While he’s impressed so far, Jacques Villeneuve is concerned Kimi Antonelli won’t help Mercedes’ development. That’s perhaps the consequence of signing a rapid but raw 18-year-old.
F1 fans voted Ferrari’s line-up as the best during the winter but Lewis Hamilton remains in the adaptation phase. Hurt by a disqualification at the Chinese GP, Hamilton has only scored 15 points so far – and eight of those came in the Shanghai Sprint.
Finally, Red Bull look more reliant on Max Verstappen than ever before. Indeed, Verstappen is remarkably responsible for all 61 of the team’s points to date.
Oscar Piastri labelled Max Verstappen’s number two in F1 paddock joke
According to former F1 team manager Peter Windsor, who was speaking on his YouTube channel, Piastri is the butt of a joke in the paddock. People ‘up and down the pit lane’ are labelling him Verstappen’s number two.
With Liam Lawson dropped and Yuki Tsunoda yet to get off the mark, Verstappen hasn’t yet had any meaningful assistance from his teammate during races. Much has been made of the absence of a ‘rear gunner’ at Red Bull.
However, Piastri is inadvertently helping the Dutchman’s title bid by taking points off Norris. He beat him twice during the China weekend.
Of course, the Australian will hope to flip the narrative and emerge as the team’s lead contender. But he’s still seen as a side character for now, with Norris and Verstappen the protagonists.
Windsor said: “There’s a bit of a joke going round the paddock at the moment that although Max doesn’t have a number two who’s up there fighting with him, he does actually have a number two – and he’s called Oscar Piastri!
“At the moment he’s taking points from Lando Norris, who’s potentially still Max’s biggest threat in terms of the championship. That was the joke going up and down the pit lane today.”
Has Oscar Piastri made a pact with Lando Norris before Bahrain Grand Prix?
Damon Hill offered advice the two McLaren drivers before the Bahrain GP, suggesting that they should emulate Nico Rosberg. The ex-Mercedes driver has spoken about the enormous sacrifices he made off-track to defeat Lewis Hamilton in 2016.
Rosberg invested so much energy into that season that he retired immediately afterwards. Now Piastri and Norris are looking to dethrone another all-time great.
There may come a point later in the year where the team need to commit to the driver who’s ahead in the standings. They’ll hope that they can avoid that eventuality by building a big lead over Verstappen.
For now, Naomi Schiff believes there’s an ‘agreement’ at McLaren that prevents the drivers from racing after a certain point. That would fly in the face of the ‘no team orders’ narrative the team like to project.
