Oscar Piastri has leapt to the defence of McLaren teammate Lando Norris after the Briton was accused of being “weak” by ex-Formula One world champion Alan Jones.
The rivalry between Piastri and Norris took a different twist this week when Jones described this year’s Australian Grand Prix winner as “quite a weak person”.
The 1980 champion also lauded Piastri as a future world champion after the Australian took the lead in the standings two weekends ago in Saudi Arabia, celebrating his third grand prix victory of the season.
Piastri is 10 points clear of Norris going into this weekend’s Miami Grand Prix, with practice to start at 0230 AEST on Saturday.
@mclaren Adding back-to-back P1s to the collection 🏆🏆 #McLaren #F1 @Oscar Piastri ♬ original sound – ✨Nostalgia vibe✨
It is the first time since 2010 that an Australian has topped the F1 standings.
The 24-year-old has won three of the past four races on the circuit, with misfiring teammate Norris looming as the man most likely to prevent him becoming Australia’s first F1 world champion since Jones.
Norris has recently struggled with the handling of this year’s McLaren, notably crashing in qualifying in Jeddah, but a season-opening win in Melbourne underlined his threat.
Piastri offered public support to Norris ahead of the sixth race of 2025, saying it was important to “try to do things in the style most natural to you”.
“When you try to do things that aren’t your natural way of being a person that’s when things become confusing. It’s when things start to go wrong,” the Victorian said.
“Everyone handles that differently. Lando handles that quite differently to how I handle it.
“Probably a lot of the emotions across the grid that happen, regardless of whether they’re in the public or not they’re probably pretty similar.
“That’s just kind of how we’re wired as people and as competitors. Obviously there’s different emotions and different ways of dealing with that. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way.
“It’s very individual to the person. I’m quite different probably at the other end of the spectrum. If that’s what you feel is the best way of venting or trying to reset yourself then go for it.”
Jones lashed Norris, last year’s Miami winner, on Fox Sports earlier this week.
“He’s coming out with all this nonsense that he’s got a bit of a mental thing, he’s dwelling on some of the problems he’s had rather than the positives,” the Australian said.
“When they start talking all that nonsense, you know you’ve got them.”
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Norris declared he had “no worry at all” about his Australian teammate building momentum in their title battle, also acknowledging he needs to get his act together and speed up.
“He’s doing a good job and he deserves it,” Norris said.
“I don’t believe so much in the momentum stuff.
“No reason to be worried. It’s round six of 24. I’m not going to say that forever, I know I need to get a move on and I need to get into gear a little bit.”
With Reuters
