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Is ugly F1 history repeating in Piastri-Norris battle?
Emily Benammar • October 24th, 2025 1:33 pm
The McLarens are going into this Mexico Grand Prix weekend with "a clean slate", according to Oscar Piastri, with the team reportedly back flipping on its decision to sanction Lando Norris.
Heading into Austin last weekend, it was revealed that the British driver had been slapped with "repercussions" because of the contact he made with Piastri at the Singapore Grand prix, which thwarted the Aussie's finishing position and dented his world title lead.
McLaren endured mixed results in Austin with a double DNF in the sprint race, Piastri finishing fifth in the Grand Prix and Norris on the podium in second behind winner Max Verstappen.
The results reduced Piastri's world title lead to just 14 points ahead of Norris and 40 ahead of Verstappen.
It's led many experts - including SEN's Gerard Whateley - to question why McLaren have not yet elected a No.1 driver to back in for the title with Red Bull closing in to spoil the party.
The 2025 season has been dominated by headlines of issues between the drivers, team orders and the impact on relationships behind the scenes as well as Piastri calling decisions out publicly as he continues to fall victim to apparent preferential treatment being shown to Norris.
Now, Piastri has come out and claimed he perhaps had some fault in the sprint melee last weekend before revealing Lando's "repercussions" have been removed.
Whatever that means.
“We’ve gone through it again – we go through every weekend, regardless of what’s happened," Piastri said.
“I think there is a degree of responsibility from my side in the Sprint, and we’re starting this weekend with a clean slate for both of us, so just going out and racing and see who can come out on top.
"The consequences on Lando’s side have been removed, and yes, ultimately it was that. There were a lot of factors involved, but ultimately that’s what’s been decided.”
Why no No. 1 driver?
As McLaren dance around the glaringly obvious issue they have as a team, Red Bull are creeping up on the title.
While 40 points is a decent deficit with just five races remaining, Verstappen remains confident he cold snatch a fifth consecutive title.
In August he trailed Piastri by 104 points, but victory in three of the last four races, suggest anything is possible.
“The run of form that he (Max) has had since Monza has been a bit of a surprise. There were flashes of that performance early in the season but also pretty big dips,” Piastri said. “He has come to the fight quicker than I expected.”
Mexico is a happy hunting ground for Verstappen who has won the race five times since 2017.
Echoes of 2007
The issues of McLaren not electing a No 1 driver are eerily similar to the 2007 season.
A rookie Lewis Hamilton teamed up with Fernando Alonso with the Brit surprising almost everyone on the grid with how competitive he was.
As they both claimed victories through the season and went toe-to-toe in the title race, one Kimi Räikkönen was creeping up on them both before eventually being crowned world champion after a series of devastating crashes in the final three races for McLaren.
Raikkonen won the title on 110 points with the McLaren duo both on 109.
Despite what history may or may not teach us, McLaren CEO Zak Brown is not interested.
“That’s the risk, right?” Brown said. “If you have two drivers like in 2007, where they equalled in points and Kimi barely beat them. But that’s how McLaren want to go racing. We want to have two drivers that are capable of winning the championship.
“On the flip side, when you get into one and two (drivers), that compromises your constructors championship. So it’s a difficult sport.
“Where we sit right now, we’re going to give both drivers equal opportunity to try and win the drivers championship.
“We’re racers. We want to go racing. We want both drivers to have a chance to win the championship, and that comes with some risk, like 2007. But we’re all aware of that and prepared that that could potentially be an outcome.”
