In his first year as a Formula 1 driver, Oscar Piastri did much to justify the hype which accompanied his arrival.
After all, he is the driver McLaren sensationally lured away from Alpine’s young driver programme, infuriating their rivals by handing him a full-time seat alongside Lando Norris.By the second half of last year Piastri was regularly showing Norris up, out-qualifying him 6-5 during that time. Would that prove a springboard for an even more impressive second season?
Maybe not. Piastri performed less well in qualifying compared to Norris this year, the gap widening from 15-7 last year to 20-4. He spent a larger proportion of the season running behind his team mate on-track, too.
He was unquestionably a clean pair of hands, for example, being the only driver to complete every lap of every grand prix. As a result, though Piastri spent more laps behind Norris he also spent more laps ahead of him.
The qualifying battle may have reflected less well on Piastri, but there were notable improvements from both drivers. Norris increasingly cut out the mistakes on single flying laps which aggravated him so much earlier in his career. Piastri was much more consistent: He seldom dropped more than three-tenths of a second behind Norris and was either within a tenth or ahead on 11 occasions.
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Most significantly, Piastri delivered, tripling his points total compared to the previous year.
Max Verstappen’s tactical belligerence towards his closest championship rival was undeniably a factor, but Piastri also proved himself a force to be reckoned with. Perhaps Verstappen sensed that too, which would explain his hasty half-move on the first lap of the season finale.
Towards the end of the year Norris sharpened up and finished ahead of Piastri more consistently. There were occasions where the senior driver clearly extracted more from the car.
While this might have been a case of Norris rising to the occasion in the championship, McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown felt the competition with Piastri was pushing him on. It’s not hard to see how that could have been so.
McLaren faced a headache in Hungary this year when Norris initially refused to accept an instruction to let Piastri by into the lead. He eventually complied, and later in the year both drivers showed their willingness to exchange positions when they felt it necessary. If Piastri continues improving in this way, they should expect to face more of these situations in 2025.
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Norris vs Piastri in 2024
Overall scores
Head-to-heads
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Qualifying gaps
Unrepresentative comparisons omitted. Negative value: Norris was faster; Positive value: Piastri was faster
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El Pollo Loco
18th December 2024, 7:41
This is easy to answer: Piastri was the biggest disappointment of the season. We had low expectations of Perez. So, only the extent of his failure was a surprise. However, there were high hopes for Oscar and he has not improved at all. If anything he has gone backward..
Rhys Lloyd (@justrhysism)
25th December 2024, 22:52
Easily the most absurd comment on the internet today. Did you even read the article?
David
18th December 2024, 9:17
2025 will be a key year for Piastri.
He had been steadily improving against Norris throughout 2023 and 2024, and during the summer it seemed like he was finally getting on top of his biggest issue – maintaining strong pace through every phase of a Grand Prix. Even on his best weekends until then he would have at least one stint in a GP where he would lose a big chunk of time.
But then the whole “papaya rules” nonsense seemed to set Piastri back again. Was this psychological, was this a case of car development being focused on Norris, or was this Piastri returning to his normal level?
Norris does seem to have matured a lot this season. Far less emotionally fragile, and able to take advantage of the McLaren’s performance in all conditions.
Next year Piastri needs to demonstrate whether he is a real challenger for #1, or just a solid #2.
Jungle
18th December 2024, 9:52
Hi David,
I agree with what you are saying. Think his season was a bit of a mixed bag. Silverstone and Hungary I think were key races where “top dog” status was trying to be established. A few mistakes in a couple of Q3 sessions throughout the season did’t help his cause either.
The stand out for me was Brazil where I thought Piastri was set for pole, then Norris just smoked him. Hamilton/Rosberg moment. Sublime lap.
Second year rookie blues?
Definitely F1 pedigree though but like you said see how he goes next year.
Mooa42
18th December 2024, 21:08
In 2023 when Piastri was .3 to .4 off Norris in quali, it was usually dropping speed across the whole lap, in 2024 it was more like Norris’s 2023. Singapore and Brazil were good examples where a mistake in one sector would ruin his Q3. So he has improved his speed in 2024, just needs to put it all together more often.
I think Piastri and Leclerec are some of the best at close combat, some of Piastri’s overtakes this year have been world class, his commitment and confidence around the outside is a pleasure to watch.
In 2025 I expect Norris will still win the Quali battle, but I expect the margins to be a lot closer.
Jungle
19th December 2024, 7:08
Yep I agree. Tyre management is also still his weakness.
Kugel
18th December 2024, 9:44
I think this is a baseless statement that doesn’t add any real value. That’s pure speculation. The post would be better without it.
Tristan (@skipgamer)
18th December 2024, 10:54
Those numbers (especially the green ticks) speak for themselves I think. Piastri still showing he can score when it matters though.
José Lopes da Silva
18th December 2024, 11:13
Piastri did a fine second season in Formula One. Surely justified his hiring and shut up all the critics. He is also justifying his option of dropping Alpine.
F1 is a tough business. There are wide lines between being a successful midfielder, a Top Driver and a GOAT-type. One can be a Top Driver for some time, being helped by being in a top car and performing consistently, even becoming a Champion, but never achieving the Heights of a GOAT-type. Even if one fails as a Top Driver, a long midfield career can appear in the horizon.
Piastri has shown that he is on his way to be a Top Driver. He challenged the Team Leader, while not overturning him; and, above all, Piastri has now won a Constructors Championship. Drivers are not valued for that, but they should.
He did not show that he is the next GOAT-type. Driving a McLaren, a GOAT-type should have been able to mount a title challenge with a McLaren in 2024. Piastri was not able to perform in his second season the way Senna, Schumacher, Alonso, Hamilton or Verstappen did.
But he is on a good path.
Coventry Climax
18th December 2024, 11:53
RF won’t like me saying it, but this is a pretty much pointless exercise.
We’ve seen Piastri prioritizing the WDC and yield to Norris a couple of times over the season, quite openly.
How much of that also happened but never came to the open, like when deciding strategies etc, we’ll never know.
Mooa42
18th December 2024, 22:48
While we don’t know all of the strategies, we do know that Piastri was always the last to receive any upgrades, and sometimes not the whole upgrade, 4 times in 2024 from my memory.
His race in Miami, without the upgrades, was looking like he was on track for a win until the safety car, not double stacking at Silverstone, there was a couple of races were McLaren let him be undercut and then leaving him out for multiple laps in case of a safety car. Despite this still outscored Norris in the 10 or 12 race period from Miami.
I think McLaren’s favouring Norris was the correct strategy for 2024 and Norris is still the team benchmark, but Piastri and McLaren should still be very happy with his 2024 season.
If Piastri can continue to improve at a similar rate, 2025 should be a great season.
Edvaldo
18th December 2024, 12:49
It for sure was a letdown. It’s as if he barely improved at all from his late 2023 form.
The car was much better than last year, and he could achieve more with it. That’s it. There were some good moments, like Baku, but those were far from being enough to challenge Norris’s superior speed.
If he doesn’t improve for next season, then i’ll have to agree that ‘papaya rules’ won’t make sense if there’s a chance at the championship.
Rhys Lloyd (@justrhysism)
25th December 2024, 22:55
You must’ve been watching a very different season to the rest of us.
PeteB (@peteb)
18th December 2024, 12:56
Norris is still claiming that this was a “learning year” despite having started nearly three times as many GPs as Piastri so that has to be factored in to any comparison. You’d expect Norris to be more consistent over a weekend at this stage in his career but for me, Piastri has shown he has better racecraft and is able to be a bit more aggressive when the situation calls for it.
If McLaren start the season with the best car, it’ll be very interesting to see what happens between the two drivers without McLaren favouring one over the other.
Jungle
19th December 2024, 7:12
Melbourne will be his home GP
fawkes
18th December 2024, 13:17
Long gone are the days when rookies dethroned F1 champions in their first season (yes, I’m thinking about Hamilton almost unbelievable 07)
MichaelN
18th December 2024, 17:09
Are they, or are the rookies just not as great? Whatever one thinks of Hamilton, most of it is just arguing where in the top 10 of all time he should be placed. He’s way out there on the ranking.
Lando Norris has driven 128 Grand Prix. That’s more than the entire career of many world champions. Way more. It’s fine to always get better and learn new things; it’s a good mindset to have. It’s no doubt true that Schumacher in 2004 was a more complete driver than in 1994, and the same with Hamilton in 2018 compared to 2008. But the thing is: Schumacher and Hamilton won in each of those seasons. And at the time, Schumacher had driven 27 races and Hamilton had just 22 to his name. What more is Norris hoping to learn before he wins races in what was often the best car?
El Pollo Loco
21st December 2024, 13:10
Bingo. Fans these days are alternatively way too easy on anyone who hasn’t driven 200+ seasons and at the same time so quick to label older drivers “washed” often based on nothing.
Paul (@frankjaeger)
18th December 2024, 17:11
The results speak for themselves. There was so much Lando bashing going on mid-season when his teammate got 1 legitimate win and was generally trounced by him all season
Le Jimster (@lejimster82)
18th December 2024, 17:58
Some of the stats look worse than what I felt about him this year. He definitely improved on his race pace and tire wear compared to his first season and he was very competitive at stages during the year.
He also scored a higher percentage of points to contribute to the constructors than he did in his first season. With how tricky the McLaren is to drive he’s done a much, much better job than his predecessor and I expect he will improve further next season.
David BR (@david-br)
18th December 2024, 20:27
Disappointingly slow combined with over-aggressive towards his team mate, passing Norris on track (fine) but also costing him more places in the process (not good from a team perspective or for Norris’s championship chances).
Honestly? Unimpressed. Good enough as a second driver, sure.
Meheransh Chopra
20th December 2024, 5:34
It has taken Norris six seasons to get to the point where he is not making silly mistakes. It’s a bit unfair to suggest that because Piastri is not at that level, his second season was a failure.
He is slowly putting all the pieces together and I think is well on his way to being one of the elite drivers. I see similarities between Piastri vs Norris and Sainz vs Norris in Norris’s first few seasons. Also, Norris is showing just how good he is now. I’m not convinced Piastri will be faster than Norris long term but Norris is also now in the top echelon of F1 drivers now so he is a very high benchmark.
Finally, it is unfair to compare across generations given how little practice time drivers get now compared to the Hamilton/Schumacher era. Even Verstappen needed more than a couple of seasons to really light up F1 and he is a once in a generation driver so I’m prepared to give Piastri more time before writing him off