Piastri doesn't buy Norris' 'car doesn't suit me' cop out: 'Down to hard work'

13:03, 02 May

byNorberto Mujica

Lando Norris has been adamant about it: his mistakes come from this year's car being different to last year's. However, McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri does not agree with the Briton's assessment.

During the FIA drivers' press conference ahead of the F1 Miami Grand Prix, Piastri answered if he had been forced to driver around the 'issues' in McLaren's 2025 car, the MCL39, and if the changes has suited him better.

"I think it's, again, a lot of the car is very similar to last year," said Piastri. "I think there are some things that we kind of identified from testing that were a bit different and maybe not the nicest characteristics to have, but it's not a huge departure from what we had last year."

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Oscar Piastri driving the MCL39 at Jeddah.

Piastri is having a better season than Norris due to hard work

Having discarded the proposed differences between last year's McLaren compared to this year, Piastri highlighted the work his side of the garage and himself have done to put themselves in the position they are in.

"I think we've done a very good job, myself with my engineers on how we deal with that, how I deal with that for my driving, how we deal with that with the setup."

Does it suit him better? The Australian replies: "I think it's a stretch to say it suits me more, because I really don't think there's that much difference [with last year's car], but ultimately the team's going to make the fastest car they can, whatever that looks like and it's kind of up to us to deal with that."

"I think for me it's very similar to last year, some small tweaks but yeah I think it's just been down to hard work why the start of this year has looked a little bit stronger for myself than last year."