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Will McLaren's Lando Norris or Oscar Piastri be 2025's world champion? As Edd Straw says, this is not just a test of driver skill - it's also a battle of the mind

- Edd Straw says, this is not just a test of driver skill - it's also a battle of the mind

Oscar Piastri or Lando Norris? Unless Max Verstappen pulls off an Alain Prost 1986-style miracle, this year's world championship battle will answer that question. The Australian seized the initiative in the early months of the season, deposing his more experienced teammate as title favourite as the narrative increasingly became one of the 'granite' Aussie asserting himself over a brittle adversary. That might foreshadow the story of the whole 2025 season, but it's far from a done deal despite Piastri tilting the playing field in his favour with his performances.

Piastri has unequivocally been the stronger McLaren driver so far in 2025. He's eradicated the question marks that hung over him during the winter after his 2024 campaign trailed off somewhat following his second victory, in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, thanks to vastly improved consistency. Piastri knew what he needed to do, explaining at McLaren's launch in February that an improvement in what he called resilience was required.

"It's building up the resilience to be able to adapt a bit quicker in the weekends," said Piastri. "Effectively, if the weekend started bad, in those weekends it was difficult, especially if it was a sprint weekend, to make progress towards the front. We've gone into a lot of detail on how we can be better prepared and some of the more specific driving opportunities."

He's delivered on that spectacularly. Piastri hasn't so much taken a step in 2025 as a leap, to the point where he has been transformed from a second-year driver into a complete one delivering as if he were in his fourth or fifth season. That's piled the pressure on Norris, whose performances have been erratic. The big difference between the two is mistakes, few and isolated for Piastri, but frequent and compounding for Norris.