Formula 1 News: Piastri is a better driver than Norris

(GMM) It is Oscar Piastri, not his “tiny bit faster” McLaren teammate, who Max Verstappen should be the most worried about in 2025.

Verstappen has won the past four world championships consecutively, but the clearly better car so far this year is the McLaren – whose drivers are 1 and 2 in the points standings.

Lando Norris led the championship early this season, but an impressive four wins from the last five grands prix for his less experienced teammate Piastri now put the young Australian at the very top of the table.

Former F1 driver Christian Danner told sport.de that he thinks Norris is “probably a tiny bit faster than Piastri in terms of speed”.

“But he (Norris) still makes the kind of mistakes that Piastri seems to have already overcome,” he added.

“That doesn’t mean Norris can’t overcome them too,” Danner said. “But things aren’t going smoothly for him at the moment.”

Although Verstappen is struggling to keep up with the dominant McLarens at present, Danner insists that nobody in the paddock should write him off.

And out of Norris and Piastri, he says the Dutchman will have his eye mostly on the latter. “He’s (Piastri) a really big problem for Verstappen.

“Max knows full well – Oscar is a tough guy.”