Norris vs Piastri, McLaren’s Title Fight Echoes Hamilton vs Rosberg – The tragedy of previous team mate battles for F1’s crown – Just nine times in seventy five years, has the fight for the drivers’ title come down to two team mates exclusively and it has not ended well more than once. McLaren are enjoying an uber dominant season, now 299 points ahead of their nearest rival Ferrari.
And it is their drivers who will fight to out for F1 immortality, since Max Verstappen conceded the 97 points deficit he faces to championship leader Oscar Piastri. Last season with thirteen rounds to go and not just ten as it is now, Lando Norris was 80 points behind Max Verstappen.
Yet despite the world champion failing to win on ten consecutive race weekends, just two wins in Qatar and Brazil at the end of the ayer was enough to fight the challenge from Lando off. The McLaren driver finished a distant sixty six points behind the Red Bull driver. Verstappen’s challenge from hereon this year would be even greater.
McLaren can break RBR record
McLaren could break Red Bull’s record of winning the constructor’s title with six races remaining set in Max’s dominant year of 2023. Come the end of the Azerbaijan weekend, the team could be crowned champions for the second year in a row.
Yet it is the drivers battle for there F1 crown which is becoming engrossing. Piastri once led his team mate by some 22 points. Yet with Norris winning three of the four Grand Prix before the summer break, the deficit is now just 9 points and so its anyone’s game to claim their first maiden F1 championship.
There have been a number of other occasions where team mates have battled it out exclusively for the F1 crown and most were not in the current spirit fostered by the McLaren team. For now Piastri and Norris are obeying team orders and appear friendly whenever they are together in front of the media, but all this can change when the finishing line in Abu Dhabi draws closer.
The battle between the McLaren pair could not really be closer. Oscar Piastri has six wins to his name this season while Norris is one behind on fiver. Each have secured pole position four times but in the qualifying head to head, Piastri is edging it 8-6.
Tale of the tape for McLaren duo
Piastri is dominant when it comes to laps led, he has 1,760 to Lando’s 1,047 along with a slender nine-point advantage in the standings. Now in his seventh F1 year of competition, Norris is by far the more experienced operator of the pair. This was often evident during last year’s campaign, where Piastri wold show signs of genius, but often went missing at circuits where tyre degradation was high.
This meant Lando started the year as clear favourite and a late spin in round one in Australia cost Piastri second place and seventeen points. He has led the driver standings since Saudi Arabia all though the wheels came of at Silverstone when a ten second penalty cost him the win.
Despite the sanguine air McLaren are currently portraying, the fight between the two McLaren drivers will greatly intensify over the coming weeks. The last great battle between team mates for a championship, was the Mercedes duo of Rosberg and Hamilton who duked it out across three seasons, given their Mercedes power unit was the class of the field with others unable to compete.
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Hamilton & Rosberg’s bitter duel
In their first year competing for F1 glory, Rosberg and Hamilton took it right down to the final race of the year. The season was marred with bitterness between the two team mates. It all began with a thrilling duel in Bahrain, where Hamilton prevailed but with some dubious track limits excursions which went unpunished.
The feud escalated dramatically at the Monaco Grand Prix. In qualifying, Rosberg ran wide and brought out yellow flags, preventing Hamilton from completing his final lap. Hamilton was furious, implying publicly Rosberg had done it deliberately to secure pole. Trust between them was broken from that moment.
Hamilton won both of their first two years battling for the title, although Rosberg had significant reliability issues in 2015. The German driver finally got the better of Hamilton in 2016, a year again scared by on track blue on blue Mercedes team mate issues.
Team mate gamesmanship slips in
In Barcelona Hamilton took both drivers out on lap one, as he desperately tried to pass his term mate at turn four. In Austria again Rosberg was leading and on the last lap of the race, Hamilton attempted a move around the outside of turn three. Nico ran deep in the corner and the pair collided,. But it was Hamilton with less damage who was able to take the chequered flag and the victory.
As the title race reached its climax in Abu Dhabi, Hamilton tried gamesmanship to wrench the F1 crown from his team mates grasp. Leading the race Lewis slowed the pace to a crawl, to allow Verstappen and Vettel to challenge Rosberg – hoping he wold lose places and the title. Yet Nico stood firm, came home in second to claim his one and only F1 championship.
Such team mate rivalries have never ended well, with Hamilton and Rosberg not on speaking terms come the end of their time together at Mercedes. These battles carry a unique fascination. Every detail is scrutinised — whether both drivers are treated equally, whether strategy calls are truly impartial, how developments are distributed, and how mind games play out behind closed doors.
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Every minute detail now scrutinised
When the duel is within the same garage, every overtaking move, every tactic, every word exchanged takes on extra weight. The stakes are not just about the world title, but about supremacy within the team itself.
This is what McLaren face starting this weekend in Zandvoort. Piastri already felt aggrieved at the teams choice for his race strategy last time out in Hungary. He too refused to comment after the race in Silverstone, where he requested the team reverse their drivers following Norris taking the lead due to a tone penalty issued by the stewards to the Australian.
The first signs of tension have been noted across the paddock and matters will only deteriorate for McLaren with each passing race weekend. One dodgy pit stop this weekend could see a swing in one drivers favour and the pressure is high within the race crew to ensure both drivers are treated equally.
To add to the desperate nature of this year’s title battle is the fact that unlike Mercedes, McLaren have no subsequent seasons to exploit their uber dominant car. Next year it could be Aston Martin or Mercedes who crack the FIA’s new car design regulations, so its one year one shot for Norris and Piastri, and only one will become a first time F1 champion.
Marko one the swift changes Mekies is making at red Bull
Red Bull Racing’s fall from grace has been spectacular. Following the most dominant year in Formula One history in 2023 when the Milton Keynes outfit won all but one grand prix. The early promise of the RB20 were good in 2024, as Max Verstappen won four of the first five races of the year his only miss was in Australia where his brakes failed whilst leading the race on Sunday.
Max followed this start with a second place in Miami where a late safety car handed Lando Norris the advantage and ultimately his maiden Grand Prix victory. Next time out Max was again top of the pile in Imola before a tricky weekend in Monaco where the car was unable to ride the kerbs efficiently. Vertsappen finished in sixth place.
Two more wins followed in Canada and Spain meaning the Red Bull driver had claimed seven Grand Prix victories in the first ten rounds of the season. But the wheels were to come off in Austria, as Norris and Verstappen were dulling for the lead. Verstappen took the McLaren driver out in turn 3 which forced Lando to retire, whilst Verstappen limped on to finish sixth in a compromised car…. READ MORE
With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
A.J. Hunt is Senior Editor at TJ13, where Andrew oversees editorial standards and contributes to the site’s Formula 1 coverage. A career journalist with experience in both print and digital sports media, Andrew trained in investigative journalism and has written for a range of European sports outlets.
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