‘He’s pushed me a lot’: How ‘absolute reference’ Piastri is changing teammate’s career trajectory

Everything is coming up McLaren these days.

McLaren is fielding the most rapidly improving car on the grid and is now a frequent contender for the front row and podium.

McLaren is the slickest team in pit lane, having just set the record for fastest pit stop in Formula 1 history in Qatar last weekend.

McLaren retains one of the most competitive driver line-ups in the paddock, with debutant Oscar Piastri regularly matching teammate Lando Norris.

Watch every practice, qualifying and race of the 2023 FIA Formula One World Championship live and ad-break free in racing on Kayo Sports. Join now and start streaming instantly >

It’s almost difficult to believe McLaren started the season in truly diabolic fashion, with the slowest car of all and a staff clean-out on the cards.

McLaren is right to revel in these good times. The team knows better than most that these moments can be fleeting, but there’s confidence that finally it’s on the right track back to the top.

But a return to victory and even title contention brings its own problems.

As McLaren zeros in on developing its first truly competitive car in a decade, so too will the battle to lead the team become increasingly competitive.

For the last two and a half years there’s been no question Lando Norris is the man. With a track record of extracting the most from often difficult machinery and with a long-term contract in his pocket, he’s been the obvious choice.

That was before Oscar Piastri arrived, however.

Aussie rookie Piastri is on an impressive trajectory. After 17 rounds he’s qualifying on average just 0.132 seconds behind Norris, making McLaren the third-closest full-time pairing on the grid on pure pace.

While Norris has the greater points haul, there’s almost nothing separating him from Piastri in average finishing position, with the Briton ahead of the Australian 8.43 to 8.89 when both have made the chequered flag.

Piastri arrived in Formula 1 with great expectations, but no-one forecast him to be so rapidly matching Norris, an established F1 force in his fifth campaign.

“You don’t see these kinds of talents in Formula 1 every day,” McLaren boss Andrea Stella said, per the F1 website. “He is an absolute reference even if he is a rookie.”

Speaking in Japan, Norris admitted that Piastri’s improvements were forcing him to dig deeper than he ever had before.

“He’s done everything he’s needed to and probably exceeded most people’s expectations from what he’s been able to achieve already this season,” he said.

“He’s pushed me a lot — it’s not a nice thing, it’s not what I want! — but he’s done a very good job.”

The last months of this year’s season might be ones we reflect on as having titled McLaren on its axis.

A SHIFT IN THE CENTRE OF GRAVITY

Sometimes you don’t realise the centre of gravity has shifted until its too late, but it’s a well-told story in Formula 1.

Piastri wouldn’t even be the first Australian to pull the team around him — and away from a decorated teammate.

Cast your mind back to 2014, when Daniel Ricciardo stepped up from Toro Rosso to Red Bull Racing to replace Mark Webber as teammate to defending four-time champion Sebastian Vettel.

Vettel, who had dominated the previous year’s campaign, appeared only four time on the podium and never on the top step. Ricciardo won his seventh race and collected two more P1 finishes on his way to third in the championship.

As the driver clearly getting more from the car in the brand-new turbo-hybrid era, the Australian had won the team over by the middle of the year. Vettel ejected for Ferrari.

The circumstances are of course different. Vettel had nothing left to prove at Red Bull Racing and dreamt of being a Ferrari driver. But the decision to leave was made easy for him by the shiny new driver in the sister garage attracting the attention previously reserved for him.

Those were the days when Ricciardo was a sure-fire future world champion. They lasted only two or so more seasons.

Max Verstappen gave Ricciardo a taste of his own medicine with a victory on his RBR debut in Spain in 2016. Verstappen wasn’t the finished article, but his speed was undeniable. The team could see it had its next leader.

At the end of 2017 Verstappen was offered a long-term big-money deal to “build a team around him”, in the words of principal Christian Horner.

Ricciardo thought he could see the writing on the wall. The team’s inability to blame Verstappen for their crash at the following year’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix proved it.

Renault offered him a chance to become its undisputed team leader for 2019, and he took it.

Vettel, meanwhile, found history repeated itself at Ferrari, where Charles Leclerc took only one year to usurp him in the Scuderia’s internal power struggle. The German found himself ousted before the 2020 campaign even began.

None of these examples are cases of bad blood or relationship breakdown. Vettel and Ricciardo are both on obviously excellent terms with Red Bull and each other. Ricciardo and Verstappen still get along extremely well. Vettel wrote Ferrari a song in Italian for their final race together and has nothing but praise for Leclerc.

This isn’t about driver rivalries. It’s the almost reflexive defensive response of a super-competitive animal to meeting their match. Two alphas can’t coexist when the biggest prizes are on the line.

WAS THIS THE WEEKEND McLAREN STARTED TO TILT ON ITS AXIS?

Already we’ve seen some clear signs that Piastri could be joining F1’s list of alpha drivers.

The Melburnian secured his career-best grand prix result with second place on Sunday, but the weekend high came 24 hours earlier, when he won the sprint from pole position for his first F1 victory of any description.

“First win, earlier than mine,” the still winless Norris said unprompted in his post-sprint interview.

While there’s no doubt over the balance of the season Norris has been the quicker driver, weekends like these demonstrate how close — or even how far ahead — Piastri can get when his lack of experience is minimised.

At a track most drivers have raced at only once before — and two years ago, before it was resurfaced, with an old specification of car — the playing field was closer to level than usual.

Norris clearly had speed around the layout but lacked execution. He lost both Friday qualifying laps to track limits and ran off the track in the sprint shootout, guaranteeing the much cleaner Piastri the advantage on both days.

In race trim there was little to separate them, with Piastri’s better starts enough to get the job done.

“If I want to be honest with myself, I should have fought for two pole positions this weekend and potentially two victories,” Norris said. “I know it’s a big thing to say, but I think if things went well, if I just did a better job and didn’t make the mistakes … I knew what was on the cards.

“Oscar has done a very good job this weekend. He’s beaten me. He’s been extremely quick and he’s made less mistakes, and he’s come out on top.”

There were a couple of interesting elements at play in Qatar.

The first was that Piastri demonstrated all the qualities that are setting him apart from the pack: clean execution, an ability to progressively improve through a weekend, racecraft and a big-picture understanding of an unfolding race.

The other was a tiny glimpse at Norris’s mental machinations.

He clearly knows what he’s capable of and knows what he can achieve. He understands that he can be among the best.

But then there was his unprompted quip about Piastri winning before him. Despite having been the lead driver for the better part of three seasons, both Ricciardo and Piastri have won races for McLaren, and he hasn’t. How much will that weigh on him as the year goes on?

Norris is a confidence driver. In a similar way to Vettel and Ricciardo, he needs to feel supported to perform at his best. That all comes naturally when you’re an undisputed number one, but not every driver is equally capable of sharing the attention.

How much more pushing from Piastri will it take to upset that equilibrium?

WHY THE RISK IS HIGHER FOR NORRIS

There is no needle between the Norris and Piastri, and the atmosphere inside McLaren is positive under team boss Stella.

But we’re not looking for fractures. A shift in the balance of power is more subtle than that.

Norris currently holds that power as the incumbent and with the explicit designation of the team’s star driver, a status he earnt partly for his impressive junior career but mostly for destroying Ricciardo in their two seasons as teammates, benefiting greatly from the Australian’s sky-high stocks upon arrival at Woking.

But perception and reputation are relative.

With five years more experience under his belt and the weight of expectation that’s been foisted upon him after dispatching Ricciardo, reputationally Norris has far more at stake.

Whereas Piastri’s inexperience can explain away mistakes or weekends off the pace, Norris’s reputation demands that he be the bar.

Right now paddock wisdom suggests Norris could be in the very top tier of drivers on the grid. But if Piastri were to beat him — if Piastri were judged to be better than him — naturally the Briton would have his reputation reconfigured without race wins or championships to anchor him to a certain status.

Norris will still be considered a very good driver, just perhaps not one of the very best. Piastri will have taken that place from him.

But to perform at his best, Norris — like so many before him — would need to feel the team pushing in his direction. Suddenly he would find himself in the same zone as Vettel and Ricciardo, in search of a team he could mould around him rather than sharing with a talented teammate.

And as Ricciardo and Vettel could tell him, it’s far harder to continue your career momentum after you’ve been bested by F1’s next big thing.