Piastri Insists ‘I Can Be World Champion’ as He Expands on Rules of Engagement With Norris For 2025
Oscar Piastri is confident that he can potentially become World Champion in 2025, with the McLaren driver also feeling assured that he and team mate Lando Norris are “crystal clear” on their rules of engagement entering into the season.
It was a hugely successful year for the papaya squad in 2024, having sealed their first Constructors’ crown since 1998 while Norris finished P2 in the Drivers’ Championship, the Briton proving to be Max Verstappen’s closest challenger.
There were occasionally some tense moments involving team orders, however, including at the Hungarian Grand Prix where Norris belatedly responded to a request to hand the victory back to Piastri. Meanwhile later in the season the Australian moved over for his team mate in the Sao Paulo Sprint to support his championship bid.
Speaking to the media after getting behind the wheel of the squad’s 2025 challenger during a promotional filming day at Silverstone, Piastri was asked if he felt confident that he could beat Norris in a fight for the title this season, having finished behind the Briton in 2024.
“It’s definitely a clean slate [this year],” the 23-year-old responded. “Everyone is starting on zero again, and I think last season towards the end it was natural that I still had the opportunities to go out and put my best foot forward.
“Yes there were a couple of situations where I ended up helping Lando, but there were some ways he still helped out me so it wasn’t as clear-cut as that. But definitely we are starting on a clean slate and I do think that I can become World Champion this year.
“I feel like 12 months ago I was going into the season still with some weaknesses that I wasn’t particularly confident with. I think through last season I addressed them, it’s now just about addressing them every weekend and making sure that I’m putting my best foot forward every weekend and that is what is going to be the difference.
“I’m confident, I think we’ve still got some things to work on and [we’re] definitely not the finished product, but I don’t think anyone necessarily is and I think if we can work on some of the things that we’ve set out to do in this off-season then I’ll have a lot of tools to be able to try to make that happen.”
Pushed further on whether he had confidence that the rules of engagement between himself and Norris were clear entering into the campaign, Piastri continued: “I think that we’re crystal clear going into the start of the season.
“Like I’ve said, we’re both starting on zero. There’s every opportunity for either one of us to go win races. Of course if there becomes a points difference in either direction towards the end of the season and we need our team mate’s help then we’ll try and help each other out.
“But that’s still going to be a long, long way away and hopefully never comes to fruition, because I think for either one of us we want to win because we’ve been able to put in the performances ourselves, so going into the season we’ll be racing each other hard but fairly, and hopefully it’s more often than not [that we’re] fighting for first and second.”
