With Lando Norris grinding to a halt with mere laps left of the Dutch Grand Prix, and his title rival Oscar Piastri going on to win, it feels like the momentum has very suddenly, and perhaps permanently, shifted the Australian’s way in this championship fight.
The British driver now trails his teammate by 34 points in the standings, the largest the lead has been all campaign. But aside from Norris’ first mechanically caused DNF of 2025, there was a more definitive variable in how the Zandvoort race transpired.
A year back, Norris dominated the Dutch race, in a McLaren car that was very clearly the benchmark. But Piastri did not follow him, where the car should have been. In fact, he was not even on the podium.
This was one of a handful of races that year where the Australian driver genuinely struggled against Norris. He was half a second slower than his British teammate, in qualifying, and finished 27 seconds behind in the race, in P4.
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For a driver in only his second season of F1, it is easy to have weekends where you cannot get close to your teammate. But without question, this was one of the tracks where Norris previously held a decisive edge over Piastri, but this is part of why the title leader’s season has been so strong.
Agony for Norris, and potentially a pivotal moment in the 2025 drivers' title race#F1 #DutchGP pic.twitter.com/EdZLHYvlHA
— Formula 1 (@F1) August 31, 2025
Such weekends, where he has performed at tracks that were his kryptonite in 2024, have become the bedrock of his championship assault.
In last year’s Chinese Grand Prix, Norris had the measure of the Australian, and finished that race in P2, while the other McLaren languished down in eighth.
Later in 2024, the Spanish Grand Prix was another miserable one for the Aussie. He qualified nine places below the pole-sitting Norris and finished over half a minute behind in the race.
Both of these races, as well as the Dutch Grand Prix, were Norris strongholds in 2024. But such has been Piastri’s improvement between last year and this, he has turned those tracks into strengths, and executed perfect pole-to-victory race wins in all of them.
Although a driver will struggle at some tracks more than others, these need to be limited in the heat of a championship battle.
And Piastri's Zandvoort success will give him a psychological edge; if he can defeat Norris at tracks where he could not get close in 2024, then Norris is going to find it more difficult to eat into his teammate’s 34-point lead.
What has made Piastri’s 2025 campaign so good is his consistency. Very rarely has he had a poorly executed weekend, and even if he has, little ground has been lost to his rival.
With the exception of the Australian Grand Prix, where the home hero spun out of winning contention when Norris nearly did, the race where the Brit took the most points out of his teammate was Monaco, but only by ten.
Hence, if Piastri can maintain this form, only the bad luck that befell to Norris may thwart him from a debut F1 title win.
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