Oscar Piastri has opened up about his rivalry with McLaren teammate Lando Norris as the young Aussie chases his first Formula 1 world title.
The 24-year-old is the only driver to bank points in every race this season, currently holding a slender nine-point edge over Norris in the fight for the 2025 crown.
Piastri is on 284 points, ahead of Norris on 275, and Max Verstappen is in a distant third on 187 points, with everyone well aware it is very much a two-horse race as the F1 returns from summer break at the Dutch Grand Prix this weekend.
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It has also led many to speculate that Piastri and Norris’ relationship could soon turn ugly, with former F1 driver David Coulthard last week suggesting it is a matter of time until tensions “boil over”.
But Piastri says, despite the rivalry, they have remained friendly, with the battle for their first world championship staying strictly on the track.
“It’s an interesting dynamic, I think,” Piastri told formula.1.com.
“I think we both feel there’s not really any tension. Well, there’s not any tension at all, really. I think we get on very well.
“We’re building waffle towers and doing silly stuff on Thursdays (at the track), but obviously once we get on track, then the business starts and we’re both very determined to try and win and try and get as many points as we can.
“There’s definitely kind of two sides to it, but if there’s tension in wanting to beat each other, it never spills out off the track, which I think is a nice thing.
“It is an interesting dynamic in how it kind of changes and flows. We’ve always gotten on well, so I don’t think that’ll change.”
McLaren has done a brilliant job in keeping the relationship between Piastri and Norris amicable as they fight for the world championship — but Piastri’s radio message to his team during the Hungary GP shows at least on the track the gloves are about to come off.
The Aussie was the victim of his McLaren team’s strategy gamble to put teammate Norris on an ambitious one-stop strategy after he dropped positions on the opening lap, with tensions finally bubbling over in the final race before the summer break.
As Piastri was preparing for his final stop, he was asked by race engineer Tom Stallard if he intended to extinguish any glimmer of hope Leclerc had of winning the race, or was instead focused on beating his teammate.
As recorded by the @radiomessages profile on X, Piastri was asked: “Leclerc is going to be four or five seconds ahead of our pit window. We suggest to box this lap”.
Piastri’s blunt response was incredibly telling: “I don’t really care about Leclerc. I just want the best chance to try and beat Lando.
In the end, he didn’t manage to reel in his teammate, and many felt the Aussie was dudded by the tactics, which seemed to favour the Englishman from the outset on a difficult track to overtake.
And following that race, McLaren moved to speak to both drivers about their rivalry and what the team will do when one of them ultimately beats the other to the F1 title.
Speaking to The Race earlier this month, McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown said the team will work out a plan on how to handle the losing driver when the championship is ultimately decided.
“We’ll just sit down and actually have a conversation and go ‘Right, one of you is going to win, it’s going to be the best day of your life – one of you is going to lose, how do you want us to handle that? You want us to jump up and down and celebrate this guy [who] won?” he said.
“We’re fully aware and sensitive to how you celebrate that situation. And I think we’ll just sit down with the drivers and come to an agreement: ‘One of you is not going to be the champion. How do you want us to act?’
“That’s the way we think. It comes back to thinking about our people.”
This weekend’s Dutch GP begins a run of three races in four weeks, and the only place to see every F1 race live is on Kayo Sports and Foxtel.