Lando Norris has competence, and the biggest one yet may be his own teammate Oscar Piastri

We know how last season ended, for better or for worse. (If you’re a Papaya fan, you must be having a great time).

It hasn’t been that long since McLaren has made a significant comeback, with midseason changes in 2023 placing them often as the second team after Red Bull. However, many would categorize that season as ‘boring’, with Verstappen dominating the field.

Although McLaren got to achieve some podium finishes and even a sprint race win (Piastri at the Qatar Grand Prix) in 2023, it was in 2024 when their car started to be the dominant one. With noticeable progress and two drivers who had been waiting for this moment, the Championship was now theirs. Or was it not?

The MCL38 racked up six race wins and 21 podiums throughout last season, and while that may have been enough to win the Constructors Championship, the runner-up in the Drivers’ one, Lando Norris, couldn’t fight the now 4 times World Champion Max Verstappen, who achieved a total of nine wins in 2024.

This led to many debates questioning Norris’ capability to drive a car that should be winning every single race. And let’s be honest, if it weren’t for the disparity in results between the Red Bull drivers, the Papaya team wouldn’t have stood a chance in the Constructors Championship either.

However, the sudden great performance of the McLaren also came with strategy problems, and uncertainties from the directive part about how to act and who to please. The so called papaya rules were often used in talks, while the situations were sometimes handled not so well. Zak Brown talked about the team after a conflictive situation in Monza last season, which saw the rise of Charles Leclerc in Ferrari, while McLaren had to be content with a 2-3, after securing a pole position and fighting to overtake each other at the start of the race.

Papaya rules are: it’s your teammate; race him hard, race him clean, don’t touch. That happened. It was an aggressive pass so that’s a conversation we’ll have, that was a bit nerve wracking on pit wall but it’s really just respect your teammate.

The Grand Prix ended up being one of the many conflictive situations not only for the own team but also for fans, who couldn’t believe McLaren was celebrating anything other than a win. And it was also not the first time conversations about who should be considered first driver were taking place. Although Lando Norris was chasing the leader Max Verstappen, we already saw what people thought of him.

‘But he’s been longer in the team’, would argue the fans whenever people defended the idea of Piastri being prioritized. Whatever the point, there was an ongoing discussion that still continues to this day. Because now, although Lando Norris is leading the 2025 championship, his teammate is only 3 points away.

They are both young drivers who want to win, we have always believed in having two number ones, that’s always been McLaren’s way, it can be difficult to manage – we’ve seen it with Senna and Prost.

Although in the past Zak Brown has repeated that he and Andrea Stella are just ‘taking it one race at a time’, in a recent interview for Sky Sports F1, he admitted that a battle between Piastri and Norris was imminent, whether sooner or later.

They race hard. I’m sure we’re going to have some excitement over the year but they race very cleanly and they are free to race, as we’ve discussed.

That moment is probably happening already, with the Australian starting P2 in today’s race at Saudi Arabia, after dutchman Max Verstappen. Norris, on the other hand, will be starting P10 after having a wonderful weekend go to waste in yesterday’s qualifying, where he crashed during the first minutes of Q3. Now the question that remains to be seen is whether today’s race will be a turning point in this year’s Championship, where there lays the opportunity to get another leader starting from tonight, and also carrying the Papaya colors.

We know how Oscar Piastri is, and the determination he carries. Winner of the 2019 Formula Renault Eurocup, the 2020 FIA Formula 3 and the 2021 FIA Formula 2 Championship, he is the only driver in history to win all of these in successive seasons. Securing his maiden victory in the 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix and his maiden pole position at the 2025 Chinese Grand Prix, he is so far the driver with most wins this season, after a bumpy start at his home race.

If we go back to the first weeks of the year, we can find the 24-year old talking about the opportunities presented in the year ahead. During an interview after the first test run at Silverstone, he once again showed his winning mentality.

I’m definitely going into this year with the aim and preparation for trying to challenge for a Championship, and trying to challenge for both Championships. (…) I think with the success we’ve had last year, it’d be silly to try and prepare for anything less.

With all eyes set now on the top 3, time will only tell who will be crowned Champion. What’s your bet?