How Oscar Piastri flipped Lando Norris script, and how McLaren handle team orders

Piastri has won more grands prix than anyone else, with four victories to date, and he has more front-row starts than any other driver, with five. He’s equal with Verstappen on three poles so far this year.

It’s a remarkable turnaround year on year. This time last season Piastri had just 53 points and was sixth in the standings with a best finish of fourth; this year he’s almost tripled his score, with 146 points, and is the first Australian to win three grands prix in succession since Alan Jones in 1979.

“I think the most important improvement, if anything, is that Oscar has become a faster driver,” Stella said.

“I think when you are a faster driver then you have more opportunity, more time to process, more bandwidth to process things.”

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Going faster while consuming less brainpower has allowed Piastri to unlock gains elsewhere in his performance.

“This is true when you are in the car, and this is also true when you are outside the car,” Stella continued. “The speed is there; let’s process all the other marginal gains that will then, at the end of the weekend, constitute the performance that you need to have the kind of results that he’s having at the moment.”

Piastri’s rate of improvement in three seasons has been rapid, and while it’s been evident from week to week, he’s made more significant steps forward in his two off-seasons, when the break in racing has allowed him to digest his results and identify areas to improve.

“Over the [northern] winter there’s been a very specific amount of work that has gone on, he’s paid attention to different areas,” Stella said. “It’s been quite holistic.

“While Oscar is definitely the main one to praise for these developments, I would like to mention the team around Oscar — his engineers and all the support from the factory with all the analysis — and even the team, Mark Webber, that works with Oscar. He’s definitely a great source of thoughts, insight and identification of opportunities.

“There’s quite a lot of work behind this progress, but ultimately hats off to Oscar, who has been able to capitalise.”

Piastri took the championship lead after winning the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, his second of three successive wins and his fifth of six career victories to date.

He’s now two wins behind Daniel Ricciardo’s tally of eight, three behind Webber’s nine, six behind Jones’s 12 and eight behind Jack Brabham’s 14, the Australian record.

While Piastri has been revelling in his title-leading start to the season, like Stella he identified his personal progress as more important.

“It’s been a great start,” Piastri said. “I’ve been enjoying the success we’ve been having on track, but for me what’s been very satisfying is all the work we’ve done behind the scenes to achieve that.

“It’s quite a different feeling when you win a race because you feel like you’ve just gotten by or had good circumstances. But to now be winning because we have an incredibly quick car and I feel like I’m driving well, that’s very satisfying.

“Of course I’ve been enjoying standing on the podium as well, but more so the hard work behind the success.”

‘WE MIGHT HAVE TO GIVE SOME DIRECTION FROM THE PIT WALL…’

While Piastri’s career statistics are swelling and his year-on-year gains are obvious, his progress is clearest relative to teammate Norris.

Norris started the season as the presumed championship favourite after his strong conclusion to last year, matching eventual winner Verstappen through the second half of the campaign.

While Piastri was the year’s highest scoring driver during the European season, he was thrashed by the Briton in qualifying throughout, and his inconsistency at either end of the year was costly to his points tally.

Piastri’s vital statistics in 2024

Qualifying result: 5.4 average

Qualifying head to head: 4-20 to Norris

Qualifying differential: 1.8 places behind Norris

Time differential: 0.223 seconds behind Norris

Race result: 5.1 average

Race head to head: 8-16 to Norris

Race differential: 0.8 places behind Norris

This season he leads Norris on almost all key metrics, some of which have totally flipped.

Piastri’s vital statistics in 2025 after seven rounds

Qualifying result: 2.0 average

Qualifying head to head: 4-3 ahead of Norris

Qualifying differential: 2.0 places ahead of Norris

Time differential: 0.233 seconds ahead of Norris

Race result: 2.3 average

Race head to head: 4-3 to Piastri

Race differential: 0.43 places behind Norris

His negative race differential is skewed by his ninth-place finish in Australia after spinning off the road in the rain.

Piastri said that though his advantage over Norris was inconsequential so early in the championship, it could begin to pay dividends if other drivers — like Verstappen — were to involve themselves in the title fight.

“The results have been a good confidence boost for me, so that’s always important,” he said.

“If we have competition outside McLaren, there are benefits to being first, like with pit stops and strategy. If you’re ahead in anything, there are always advantages.

“But in terms of the mentality and feeling in the team, we’re still trying as hard as we can to beat all the other teams and also each other. I think that’s going to remain the same for the rest of the year.

“Obviously you want to have the edge at the end of the season — that’s where it’s most important.”

And in the event the title does become a three-cornered contest — as Imola suggested it might — the potential need for team orders could double the dividend of his handle on his teammate.

Stella played down the possibility of the McLaren pit all intervening in the title fight, though he reserved the right to make a call in the best interests of the team.

“There may be situations in which we are challenged as a team, in which the internal competition gets very tight,” he said. “We might have to give some direction from the pit wall — and internally we don’t even say ‘if’, we say ‘when’, because the business is so complex, Formula 1 is so difficult, that you will have this situation.

“The matter of the internal competition between our two drivers is a matter that we face using our racing principles and approach.

“These principles have been put together not only by the team itself but also with the contribution of the drivers. It’s very much based on several good conversations we’ve had as we’ve been going through this journey together.

“These principles and this approach — which I’m not going to disclose, just for a matter of protecting our IP — so far have worked very well.

“They would not be working so well if we didn’t have two drivers like Oscar and Lando, who are not only very fast on track, but they’re also two great individuals. I’ve seen this several times. I see it in the way they race.

“For me what’s important is that we stick with these principles and this approach and that we react as a team in the most constructive way — something that, having Lando and Oscar on board, makes me quite confident will be the case.”