Lando Norris's long list of mistakes that makes Piastri the new F1 title favourite

As Lando Norris returns to the scene of his first Formula 1 victory in Miami, it’s McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri who has more reasons to feel things will go his way in the sixth round of the 2025 season.

Norris has gone from championship favourite at the start of the year to lagging behind the Australian, both in terms of momentum and, since Saudi Arabia, also in the standings, which Piastri now leads with a 10-point gap to the British driver.

Piastri’s advantage is the result of having been the more consistent of the team-mates, as Norris is having a lot more difficulty getting on top of the Woking team’s 2025 car.

His on-track struggles have led to some significant setbacks, most recently in the form of a crash in qualifying in Saudi Arabia which quashed his chances of fighting for victory when he had looked like the man to beat up until that point.

To his credit, Norris has been atypically open – at least for an F1 driver – about the issues he’s having.

“Something’s not gelling, something’s not clicking, and therefore, I just don’t feel comfortable when I’m in the car,” he said after a bruising Bahrain GP in which another mistake cost him points.

Norris’s emotion is at odds with his unflappable team-mate, as noted by Karun Chandhok in his latest Motor Sport column. “Piastri seems to be extremely level emotionally, almost like a Scandinavian,” writes Chandhok. “You don’t see the big highs after a victory, nor the lows of a poor day. In contrast, Norris wears his heart on his sleeve and his body language after Bahrain was of an athlete who has had a bad weekend without any real answers of how to fix it.”

Since becoming an F1 race winner in Miami a year ago, Norris has enjoyed plenty of success, winning another four races including this year’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix, but there have also been several times in which he has dropped the ball.

At the start of the season, he declared that he had learned from the mistakes he made in 2024 and was ready to race for the championship. “I believe I’m a good enough driver and I’ve got everything it takes,” he told the BBC podcast F1: Back at Base “I’m excited to go into 2025 knowing I’ve learned a lot, I’ve improved a lot and I’m ready to bring the fight to everyone.”

The errors and difficulties have continued, however, leading to the current situation in which Piastri is seen by many as McLaren’s championship favourite.

2024 Austrian GP

It would be unfair to pin the blame on Norris for all the points lost in the Austrian Grand Prix last year, as it was agreed by the stewards that Max Verstappen was at fault for the clash that ruined both their races.

But Norris had so much more pace than Verstappen that it’s inevitable to see it as a lost opportunity for the McLaren driver, who retired after their contact as his rival went on to finish in fifth.

In hindsight, a wiser, calmer approach would have helped Norris beat Verstappen quite easily as he had the faster car.

Of the costly mistakes Norris has made over the past year, it would be unfair to put this one too high on the list, even though a track-limits penalty might have still cost him victory had he finished first on the road.

2024 Hungarian GP

Norris didn’t do much wrong in this race, except for losing the lead at the start, which would end up costing him victory.

By Hungary, McLaren had the fastest car on the grid and the Briton had looked like the strongest of the two McLaren drivers until the lights went off.

Norris benefitted from McLaren’s strategy to emerge in the lead after the pitstops, but that was only after the team had put Piastri on a strategy he wasn’t allowed to cover for.

That meant that McLaren asked Norris to give first place back to the Australian, a decision he reluctantly accepted with just three laps to go.

2024 Italian GP

Again starting from pole, and again losing the lead before the end of the first lap, Norris didn’t make any huge mistakes at Monza, but failing to defend from Piastri cost him not only the lead but also second place to Charles Leclerc.

From then on, Norris didn’t appear to be on top of his game and had to settle for third place, again behind Piastri.

The missed opportunity was particularly costly as championship leader Verstappen had no pace and struggled to a distance sixth.

2024 United States GP

After finally managing to keep the lead from pole in Singapore, Austin was another race lost at the start for Norris, who had secured his sixth pole of the year.

Norris didn’t make a particularly bad start, but was too shy in his defence against Verstappen as the Red Bull driver dived down the inside at Turn 1.

The move again raised questions about Norris’s approach to racing Verstappen.

Another track-limits penalty caused Norris further pain as the five seconds dropped him behind the Red Bull driver at the end of the race.

2024 Brazilian GP

Norris was very quick in the dry at Interlagos and had won the sprint race, after Piastri had given it up for him, before going on to be quickest in qualifying.

But another wasted pole position resulted in the championship battle effectively ending, after Norris had to settle for a distant sixth while Verstappen went on to take a masterful win in extremely challenging conditions.

This time, Norris lost the lead to Russell at the start, then struggled in the wet, went off track twice, and faced an investigation for a mistake with the starting procedure after a red flag.

Having kept the pressure up on Verstappen for several races, Brazil effectively sealed the title for the Red Bull driver.

2025 Bahrain GP

The Bahrain GP weekend was a struggle as a whole for Norris, who had no response to Piastri’s pace, but he made life harder for himself with another mistake, this time in the form of lining up ahead of his grid box.

The error probably cost him just one position (second, to Russell) as Piastri appeared to be in a league apart, but it was another mental blow to a driver who already had a defeatist tone.

2025 Saudi Arabian GP

The most recent of Norris’s costly mistakes came in qualifying at Jeddah, where the McLaren driver crashed into the wall on his first flying lap in Q3.

Having looked like the fastest driver up until that point, Norris’s error relegated him to 10th place on the grid as Verstappen and Piastri secured the top two spots.

A solid recovery to fourth on Sunday limited the damage, but it meant that race winner Piastri left Saudi Arabia as the championship leader and consolidated himself as McLaren’s leading driver.