What Piastri thinks to ‘age of Lando Norris’ remark from Zak Brown

Putting pen to paper on a fresh McLaren contract, Oscar Piastri has brushed aside Zak Brown’s alleged claim that this is the start of the “age of Lando Norris”.

Last year, in his second season in Formula 1, both Piastri and Norris became Formula 1 race winners, Norris recording his debut win at the Miami Grand Prix before Piastri stood on the top step of the podium seven races later in Hungary.

The ‘age of Lando Norris’? Not if Oscar Piastri has a say

But while Norris proved to be the more consistent of the two, taking a further three wins as he emerged as a title contender, Piastri bagged one more and was called upon to support Norris’ quest.

Despite Piastri gifting Norris an extra point with the Brazilian GP Sprint victory, allowing him to close the gap to 44 points, the Briton fell short a day later when he imploded a wet Brazilian Grand Prix, falling from first to sixth while Verstappen went from 17th to first.

The World Championship race was over bar the shouting, that taking place a race later in Las Vegas, but McLaren held on to win the Constructors’ title, their first since 1998.

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With arguably the strongest, or at worst the second strongest, line-up on the Formula 1 grid, McLaren are once again expected to launch a two-pronged attack on the World title while also aiming for the double.

And it seems, at least according to Netflix’s Drive to Survive S7, that McLaren CEO Zak Brown believes it will be Norris who emerges as the one to beat.

Piastri has taken that with a pinch, if not a bucket, of salt.

Quizzed about a clip in which Brown tells the DTS cameras that it is the “start of the age of Lando Norris”, Piastri told the media ahead of the Australian Grand Prix: “I haven’t watched it, to be honest. I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what happens, so I don’t need to watch it again on TV.

“No, I mean, obviously there’s a lot of things in Drive to Survive that, you know, we never quite know how it’s been cut up.

“But no, I think for myself, I’m very confident in what I can do.

“We’re going into the season starting from zero for both of us, and we’re both obviously going to be trying to fight for a World Championship.

“So yeah, I’m pretty confident in what I can do and aware that there are things that I need to do better from last season. But I’m confident that we’ve done a lot of hard work to try and improve that and go out and have a good year.”

In fact, the newly re-signed McLaren driver insisted the team-mates will go into the new F1 2025 championship with a clean slate, and may the fastest driver win.

“I mean, we’re starting from a clean slate, and ultimately, whoever’s going to be faster on track is going to be the one who wins and finishes higher,” he said.

“So yeah, we’re very much clear on how we’re going into the season, and that’s racing each other and trying to hopefully fight for wins.

“It’s all very clear. We’ve discussed a lot from last season and how we managed the back end of last year. And I think this year, starting from zero again, we’re both going to be trying our best to win.”

Win number one for the season could come as early as Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix with McLaren arriving in Melbourne with, all the pre-season number crunching says, the fastest car.

But even they do clinch the season-opening victory, Piastri does not believe that it would be the start of an era of McLaren dominance given this is the last year of the current regulations.

To suggest otherwise, he says, is naive.

“No, I don’t think so,” he said. “Usually that would be ideal — to try and have that level of success and competitiveness. I think that’s what every team dreams of and what every driver dreams of.

“But at this point in the regulations, with how last season went, expecting that is incredibly naive.

“I think this season is going to be just as tight, if not even tighter, than the second half of last year especially. So yeah, of course, that’s what we want to aim for, but we have a new set of rules coming next year, and that’s probably going to change the pecking order quite a bit—or at least the gaps quite a bit. So I don’t think it’s the same circumstances.

“But also, I think this year is going to be an incredibly competitive year of F1. As much as I would like to try and have that level of success, I think it’s going to be very, very tough.”

Piastri would make history if he won on Sunday as no Australian F1 driver has ever won the Australian Grand Prix.

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