Oscar Piastri’s sophomore season at McLaren has been impressive, having achieved his first Grand Prix victory and consistently finished on the podium.
The Australian has been key to their Constructors’ Championship this year, with McLaren achieving the feat for the first time since the 1998 season.
Piastri stood on the podium eight times this year and sixth-highest points scorer since the summer break, having added 125 points to his tally – which is only three away from the points scored by Carlos Sainz in the same period.
With Lando Norris going up against Max Verstappen in the Drivers’ Championship, many people turned to McLaren when pivotal moments arose that could sway the points gap between the two.
Discussing their partnership this year on the High Performance podcast, McLaren CEO Zak Brown has explained why there is one assumption people should not make about Norris and Piastri.
McLaren never pre-planned Oscar Piastri supporting Lando Norris
Norris had to overcome a 68-point gap in the final three races of the season, which meant winning every race and taking pole along with fastest lap.
Piastri was told by McLaren to support Norris following their close battle on the opening lap of Monza, however he still continued to take points away.
Even though Piastri moved out of the way for Norris to win the Sprint race in Brazil, Brown pointed to the Australian’s win in Baku as evidence that he can win races on merit.
“The ironic thing was that everyone was talking about Oscar supporting Lando, then the next race in Baku it was Lando supporting Oscar. So it just goes to show that you can only pre-plan some things.”
McLaren drivers to race Max Verstappen differently in the future
Both Norris and Piastri experienced their fair share of on-track battles with Verstappen this season.
Piastri was caught up in a first-lap incident at Abu Dhabi when the Dutchman tried an optimistic move on the inside of Turn 1, causing both to spin and lose positions.
| Points | Expire |
| 2 points – 2024 Austrian GP (Collision with Norris) | 30th June 2025 |
| 2 points – 2024 Mexico City GP (Forcing Norris off track) | 27th October 2025 |
| 1 point – 2024 Brazilian GP (Under minimum delta) | 1st November 2025 |
| 1 point – 2024 Qatar GP (Driver unnecessarily slowly in qualifying) | 1st December 2025 |
| 2 points – 2024 Abu Dhabi GP (Collision with Piastri) | 8th December 2025 |
Verstappen has amassed eight penalty points on his FIA super licence this season through incidents with McLaren drivers, which puts him four away from a one-race ban. He will need to be careful in the opening races of 2025, as his next set do not expire until June.
Brown has said that his drivers will race Verstappen differently next year, given how they were treated by the four-time world champion.
