Brundle: 'Oscar Piastri has really sharpened Lando Norris up

Martin Brundle thinks it does linger on Lando Norris' mind that Oscar Piastri has scored a (sprint) victory in Formula 1 before him. The former racing driver - now the face of Sky Sports - also sees that Piastri's arrival has made Norris a lot sharper.

"Let’s remember that Oscar Piastri won the Sprint race in Qatar in great style with Max trying to catch him," said Brundle, who does see McLaren winning world titles again in the future. "I don't think their new wind tunnel will really pay off until 2025, but if they do everything else right..."

He continued: "Their [McLaren’s] new wind tunnel won't really pay a lot of dividends until 2025, but if they put everything else together well…and remember even a couple of years back there was a sequence of three races [Italy and Russia 2021] where Lando could have won all three of them. So it’s within touching distance, and he must be mortally wounded that actually, it was Piastri who saw the chequered flag first.”

Norris and Piastri

Yet it can be rightly argued that Norris is still the better of the two at the moment. In terms of pure speed, Piastri was already showing nice things as a rookie in 2023. However, when it comes to tyre management, Norris definitely still has the edge over his more inexperienced Australian teammate.

"Oscar Piastri has really sharpened Lando Norris up. Now he has to get on with it a little bit because Piastri has turned up, as a rookie, delivering the high speeds through the really challenging corners, delivering some amazing results. Made some rookie errors as well, but I think that’s really driven both drivers on and probably just what Lando needed because I think in the second half of the season, Lando Norris has been outstanding," Brundle concluded to Sky Sports.