Bahrain Grand Prix 2025: “The contrast between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri”

By combining a constant speed with mental solidity and decisiveness of the racing it has always shown it makes a formidable rival piastri which, at least psychologically, will be a difficult nut to break.

As the Dean of the McLaren Team Andrea Stella in Bahrein said: “There is no noise in Oscar’s head, which is a very useful feature in Formula 1, and I think this allows him to progress, to elaborate information, to elaborate what is available in situations as a way to improve himself at a very rapid pace.”

In Norris’ head there is noise. While Piastri maintains a very uniform keel and gives the impression of being unstoppable, Norris wears his heart on the sleeve and publicly lives his failures.

Which does not mean that it affects Norris’ performance. As Norris says, this is just like that. “When I do my interviews and whatever,” he says, “most likely he is just getting my frustration. It is only for not reaching what I want to achieve. It is for my desire to do well and my ambition to win.”

But he is a fascinating contrast between the two teammates of McLaren and now contenders for the title.

Second Stella, this is not a weakness of Norris.

“There is something important here,” says Stella, “that it is something that I admire in Lando and makes me very privileged and lucky as the principal of the team, which tends to absorb and blame for itself.

“Like yesterday, Q3, he didn’t put the tour together, he raises his hand. Offload entirely by the team from how: ‘guys, not your problem, it was me.’

Stella adds that Norris takes the blame for himself is “inaccurate”.

“We know that we made some changes to the car, which made Lando’s life a little more difficult,” says Stella.

“We know what it is. Lando is adapting to this. Somehow it could potentially have been able to play a little more from the end of Oscar and we are working together to solve it.”

In essence, McLaren’s car is not giving Norris the feedback he needs to trust his front -when he is trying to take him to the limit in qualifying. Since it is unpredictable for him, he is finding difficult to constantly replicate the time of the Ultimate Giro.

Flatters, with a different driving style, is not influenced in the same way.

Stella says that there is nothing different in Norris’ reaction not to feel with his car than with his previous accusations, Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso, both with whom he worked on Ferrari before moving to McLaren for 2015.

“I saw various multiple world champions,” said Stella. “I have not seen any of them that, when there is a situation in which you would like to do something with the car, but the car does not do exactly what you would like, they are completely comfortable.

“It is an uncomfortable situation, but the way Lando is navigating in this situation, from a substantial point of view, is the same as other champions I have seen in the past.”

McLaren is working on technical changes to face Norris’ issues, but it is not yet publicly known when they arrive, nor of course how effective they will be.

It is adding an extra and unexpected turn to a battle of the title that at least so far seems to develop slowly in one interior between the two McLaren drivers.

“For myself,” said Piastri, “I felt comfortable, especially this weekend – in what the car was able to do. And I think the team has done an excellent job.

“But it’s still so early. At the moment, we have a nice car below us. I feel like most for the most part we have been able to do a good job with it.

“I think there will be other contenders. And I think as long as we have the best car, it will be tight between Lando and I.”