Entering the 2025 Formula 1 season, McLaren were the consensus favorites for both championships. Given the fact that the team were entering the year as the reigning constructor champions, and how competitive they were to end the 2024 season, there was no reason to suggest otherwise.
Specifically on the driver side, however, most fans had Lando Norris' name circled at the top of the standings, rather than Oscar Piastri's. After all, Norris had heavily out-performed Piastri in their two previous seasons together, with three more wins, 10 more podium finishes, 184 more points, and nine more pole positions.
However, the third-year Australian driver has completely flipped the script to start 2025. Through six races, he has four wins, five podium finishes, and leads the championship by 16 points over Norris. With his Miami Grand Prix win last weekend, he now has three straight victories and has overtaken Norris in career wins with six.
Despite driving the same car, Piastri has won races in drastically different ways to Norris, all of which have been very telling.
Of his six career victories, you could argue only two of them have been truly dominant, lights-to-flag, never-in-doubt performances, those being this year's Chinese Grand Prix and Bahrain Grand Prix.
Whether it be passing Norris and Max Verstappen at turn one in Hungary, overtaking and fending off Charles Leclerc for the whole race in Azerbaijan, or simply out-racing Verstappen in both Saudi Arabia and Miami the last two weekends, he's almost always had to get his elbows out, deal with pressure, and earn it.
His most recent two wins were perhaps his most impressive of all.
Lewis Hamilton, Norris, and Leclerc have all rarely, if ever, beat Verstappen in a wheel-to-wheel situation, even if they've had the better car. Yet after just two battles together, Piastri has already gotten the better of him twice.
In Saudi Arabia, he got a better start from second place, got ahead of Verstappen before turn one, and forced the Dutchman off the track at turn two, done legally under the new guidelines, and that earned Verstappen a penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage, a penalty which ultimately won Piastri the race.
Then in Miami, Piastri hounded the Red Bull corner after corner for several laps, before finally forcing Verstappen into a mistake at turn one. He pulled off switchback to complete the move and went on to win.
Unlike everyone else who has gone up against Verstappen to this point, Piastri is totally unmoved by his presence and tricks, given his smart mentality and incredible calmness. That's a very dangerous strength to have.
Piastri is the perfect match to Verstappen, which is a massive disadvantage to Norris and his title hopes.
No matter how fast or slow Verstappen's machinery is, he's shown that he is always going to be a factor. What's become crystal clear is that Piastri is just better equipped to take on that challenge than Norris is.
Time after time the last two years, Verstappen has gotten the better of Norris in wheel-to-wheel combat, the common denominator very often being Norris on the outside or leaving the door open, and either being forced off, wrecked, or given a penalty.
In Miami, Norris found himself on Verstappen's outside several times, and he was forced off the track at the third turn to fall down to sixth place, and then he was run wide and bounced off the turn two curb on lap 15 before finally blowing past him with DRS. It's as if he hasn't learned that passing Verstappen around the outside is literally impossible.
Compare that to Piastri, who stayed patient behind the Red Bull and continued to just apply pressure into each overtaking spot knowing he had more pace, and he was eventually able to force Verstappen, who never makes errors, into an error.
Many have suggested that Verstappen simply races Norris differently than he does Piastri, and that could be true. However, if Norris played the same strategy against Verstappen in Miami that Piastri did, you can't convince anyone that he wouldn't have been able to pass in a similar manner.
It's more down to Norris' approach to attacking than it is Verstappen's approach at defending, because that very approach of Verstappen's has not worked against Piastri.
It's far from the first time that two title-contending teammates have been drastically different to one another. Often, it ends up being a great contest between two drivers who expose each other's weaknesses to boost their own strengths.
However, given how similarly Piastri matches up with Verstappen, the very driver who out-dueled Norris to the title last season, it's hard to see the Brit taking the championship away from the Aussie if the difference between them in wheel-to-wheel situations remains stagnant.
If Norris thinks it's hard to beat Verstappen in a faster car, just wait until he goes toe-to-toe on the track with Piastri in the same car.