‘Got the edge’: How Piastri sparked McLaren power shift as biggest hint over title race looms

We’re only two rounds into the season, but McLaren has already emerged as the clear frontrunner in the fight for both titles.

Pre-season expectations had already pegged the reigning constructors champion as favourite to go back to back.

Of course we’re still early in the campaign and yet to visit a wide enough sample of circuits, and the potentially significant front wing rule changes at the Spanish Grand Prix are still to come, little obvious has stood out as a clear threat to McLaren’s supremacy.

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That puts the drivers championship battle into an interesting zone.

McLaren’s arrival as F1’s pre-eminent force might have arrived at exactly the right time.

Lando Norris has long been tipped as a future championship contender. McLaren’s homegrown talent has had the speed throughout his junior career, and in last year, particularly late in the season, he ironed out many of the foibles and much of the nervousness from his game. In 2025 he presents as something close to the complete package.

Unfortunately for him, his first genuine shot at the title coincides with the rise of Oscar Piastri.

Piastri’s 2023 debut was highly anticipated after his three-time title-winning junior career, and he hasn’t disappointed, pushing Norris hard during their early days and clearly growing in power round by round.

This year he’s taken another step, and given what’s at stake, it could be his most important development yet.

This weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix at the punishing Suzuka Circuit will be an important tell in just how far he’s come — and how much further he has to go to get his hands on an elusive world title.

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‘HE’S IN A GOOD POSITION’

Piastri has started this year in fine form. His first grand prix pole position and then his third career victory in China was an obvious highlight, but his intrateam supremacy in the sprint shouldn’t be so quickly forgotten, nor should be the fact that he was faster than Norris through the middle of the Australian Grand Prix before the rain arrived and he slid off the road.

No-one’s saying it isn’t tight between the McLaren drivers, but the argument is there to be made that Piastri has been the quicker driver so far this year, even if he’s shared the headline results with Norris.

“I think at the moment Oscar has got the edge,” former Haas boss Guenther Steiner told the Red Flags podcast.

“In China he showed that he has got the edge. All the time he was better.

“If I would have to put my money now on the world champion, I would put it on Oscar.

“When you saw him speaking after the pole position in qualifying, he seemed to be pretty upbeat. Normally he doesn’t speak a lot.

“You can really see he is enjoying it, and I think he wants more of it because he enjoyed that quite a bit. I think he is in a good position now.”

Piastri’s Chinese Grand Prix result is significant not just for the controlled nature of his victory but also because of the context in which it came.

Piastri struggled badly at the Shanghai International Circuit last year, finishing more than half a minute behind Norris in the race, a raw deficit of 0.758 seconds per lap.

And it wasn’t just in China there was a clear improvement. Despite being his home race, Piastri has had a lukewarm record at the Australian Grand Prix but was on track to finish at least second before his critical mistake late in the race.

Piastri’s race improvements

Australia 2024: Norris ahead by 29.866 seconds

Australia 2025: Norris ahead by 20.448 seconds*

China 2024: Norris ahead by 42.425 seconds

China 2025: Piastri ahead by 9.748 seconds

*Piastri had been 2.724 seconds behind Norris before spinning off the road on lap 44 of 57.

It’s an undeniable upwards trajectory for the Melburnian as he seeks to eliminate the differences between himself and the more experienced Norris.

“It was a big turnaround this weekend compared to China last year,” Piastri said. “It was a track that I had a lot of homework to do from 12 months ago.

“It’s been very satisfying to have probably my most complete weekend in F1 this weekend be at a track I struggled the most at last year.

“I’m very pleased with the hard work that not just I’ve done but the whole team around me have done — the engineers on my side of the garage, everyone at McLaren — for firstly giving us a car that’s much stronger than it was 12 months ago here but also being able to chip in where they can and try to help me improve.

“I think it’s been a really nice show of progress in 12 months, but there’s still going to be challenges along the way.

“It’s just a nice confidence boost at the moment.”

SUZUKA WILL BE PIASTRI’S BIGGEST TEST

If there’s one thing a driver needs in Japan, it’s confidence.

Suzuka Circuit is one of the world’s great racetracks that tests both the car and the driver in equal measure. Being an old-school track that’s barely changed since it opened in the 1960s, the margins for error are also extremely small, with gravel and walls ready to catch any stray cars and ruin a driver’s day.

It’s also been a significant circuit in Piastri’s career.

In his first season, when this race was still run in September, McLaren rewarded the Australian for his strong debut-season campaign with a fresh contract. He repaid the team by qualifying second behind Max Verstappen, one place ahead of Lando Norris, and by scoring his first grand prix podium.

His return early last year was less happy. In a McLaren that was still awaiting the Miami upgrade that would completely change the complexion of the season, Piastri was way of the improved Norris’s pace in qualifying and well adrift of him in the race.

Piastri’s 2024 Japanese Grand Prix

Qualifying: Norris ahead by 0.489 seconds

Race: Norris ahead by 17.825 seconds

The key challenge at Suzuka — besides keeping the car on the narrow tarmac — is managing the tyres.

Suzuka is a high-energy circuit around which the Pirelli rubber takes a beating. Keeping the tyres alive for one qualifying lap is extremely difficult, never mind an entire race stint.

Management is also crucial strategically. With overtaking difficult, losing places to an additional stop can break a race and cost significant points.

Improving tyre management is a function of seat time. It was a key area for betterment after Piastri’s first season, and though his race performances were much improved last year, there was a clear experience gap hampering his performances all the same.

But his races in Australia and China, both tyre-critical events at circuits he’s struggled with in the past, suggests that difference has been eliminated.

“For somebody who’s been in Formula 1 for two seasons, the level at which he has driven, the level of maturity he has shown inside and outside of the car, has been not short of simply impressive,” McLaren principal Andrea Stella said in Melbourne.

“The trajectory we have observed in Oscar’s growth was very convincing, and at no point did we see that this trajectory had any sort of deviation from being very steep.”

It bodes well for his Sunday performance in Suzuka this weekend, victory at which could give him some crucial momentum in the title fight.

QUALIFYING IS KEY

But there’s one area where Piastri’s progress needs a little more time to evaluate.

In his debut season he did well to regularly challenge Norris in qualifying. Last year the dynamics flipped, with Piastri looking impressive on Sundays — he was the highest scoring driver in the field during the middle of the season — but lost ground over a single lap.

He was thumped 4-20 for qualifying last season with an average deficit of 0.223 seconds, though that’s exaggerated by wet qualifying in Brazil and an uncharacteristic mistake in Mexico that left him out of Q1.

While the margins were often tight, in the super-close pack last year it was enough to put him on average around two places further back on the grid. That often made the difference in him finishing on or off the podium, especially as McLaren’s advantage dissipated late in the season.

Though Norris and Piastri have one pole apiece this year — again, a small sample size — the early signs are extremely encouraging for the Australian.

Piastri’s qualifying improvements

Australia 2024: Norris 0.257 seconds ahead

Australia 2025: Norris 0.084 seconds ahead (improved by 0.173 seconds)

China 2024: Norris 0.108 seconds ahead

China 2025: Piastri 0.146 seconds ahead (improved by 0.254 seconds)

Average 2024 (overall): Norris 0.223 seconds ahead

Average 2025 (two races): Piastri 0.035 seconds ahead (improved by 0.258 seconds)

His progress is best illustrated by him scoring his first grand prix pole. He’s got close several times, but sealing the deal cemented the gains.

But it’s worth noting that while China was a difficult race for Piastri last year, it wasn’t a tough one over a single lap.

Japan, however, was a rough round for Piastri for pure qualifying speed.

It’s critical to qualify well in Japan given passing is difficult around this high-speed and narrow circuit.

But how he does on Saturday stands as a significant validating test of the Australian’s early gains.

If Piastri can qualify and race well — if he can take pole of if he can win the race, or both — it’ll mean a lot more than a boost to his points on the championship table.

It’ll be a boost to his championship credentials in what could be a landmark season for his career.