Piastri and Norris show McLaren why the Australian should be their #1

Lando Norris has yet again, underperformed. A bad day at the office? Everyone has them. But the way champions assimilate tough sessions differs greatly from Norris' approach.

Whereas drivers who are accostumed to winning races and who have the mental fortitude to fight for titles have a more resilient mentality, it is only the 4th Grand Prix of the season and Norris is already speaking about being clueless.

Not only that, the British McLaren driver then mentioned needing a 'big reset'. What was the two-month stoppage F1 underwent during the winter break then?

After the final race in Abu Dhabi in 2024, and prior to the start of the season, however, Norris was singing a very different tune, outright saying that 2025 was his time to take the Drivers' title.

Meanwhile, a frosty Piastry, low-key, quiet and calm was hard at work ironing out the gremlins that extricated him from the title fight in 2024: his qualifying performance, and his tyre management.

In the season opener, his home race, the Australian Grand Prix, Piastri had two setbacks: an inopportune team order kept him from attacking team leader Norris. Later on, as the rain began to fall down in the latter part of the race, the Australian went off, and from P2 fell down the order until he was out of the point scoring positions, although he did manage to fight back to claim P9.

The very first race back, in China, Piastri emerged P2 in the Sprint race and the victor on Sunday ahead of Norris. Whilst his British teammate seems to be stuck in a negative trend upending his strong start to the season.

With two poles in the first four races of the season, and the possibility of matching that stat in terms of race wins, it is clear who has the mental edge on who in the McLaren team at the moment.

As such, Andrea Stella and Zak Brown, McLaren's operational and administrative leaders respectively, should start thinking about shifting their focus toward the Australian driver, as Norris is not mentally strong enough to take on a year-long title fight, if such large cracks are starting to appear in the very early stages of the season.

In that case, a driver who has shown remarkable progression and who is now outperforming their seasoned front-runner, certainly seems like the better and safer option to bet on.