This season Piastri is in one other league in comparison with his team-mate. The incident in Canada was a direct results of Lando making one more mistake. McLaren must prioritise Oscar for the remainder of the season, absolutely? – Anon
To explain Piastri as “in one other league” from Norris this 12 months is a little bit of a stretch, to say the least.
There is no doubt Piastri has had a greater season than Norris up to now, and been the extra convincing of the 2 McLaren drivers. Therefore his benefit within the championship and of their head-to-head stats in each races and qualifying.
However when it comes to outright efficiency, there’s little between the 2, and they’re roughly swapping the place of the quicker McLaren driver every weekend.
The important thing this 12 months up to now is that Piastri is delivering his finest on a extra constant foundation than Norris. The Australian is thrashing Norris, not solely on the weekends when he’s faster, but in addition on a number of the weekends when the Briton seems to be like he in all probability is, due to the errors he’s making.
Canada was a working example. Had Norris strung his qualifying collectively, he would in all probability have been forward of Piastri on the grid, wherein case he would seemingly have completed forward of him as nicely.
The identical may have been mentioned of Saudi Arabia and Miami. In Jeddah, Norris crashed in qualifying, making an attempt too exhausting. In Miami, he certified forward however tangled with Verstappen on the primary lap, permitting Piastri previous.
There isn’t a doubting Norris’ velocity, however it’s additionally plain that he’s making too many errors this season. He is aware of it; the workforce understand it. They usually’re making an attempt to assist him with it.
After all, the query is, why is that this taking place? Is he feeling the stress from Piastri? Of being in the perfect automobile and this being his finest likelihood of a world title up to now in his profession? A mix of each, and maybe different components as nicely?
No matter it’s, he definitely must get out of the headspace he’s in and discover a method to get into a spot the place issues circulate extra naturally for him. The place, basically, he isn’t over-striving.
As for the query of prioritising Piastri, that goes again to the primary reply. Aside from in particular circumstances, that is not how McLaren go racing, and it is exhausting to see a robust argument for it in the mean time.
The McLaren is just not the quickest automobile each weekend. However it’s persistently the quickest automobile up to now this 12 months.
Their drivers are one and two within the championship, and comparatively comfortably so. What can be the argument for them to prioritise Piastri in these circumstances?
