2025 F1 Season: Prost Gives His Take on Piastri’s Approach
May 5 – 2025 is shaping up as a psychological battle between the two very different personalities in the Papaya-coloured McLaren cockpits.
The calm, quiet Oscar Piastri won his third consecutive grand prix win on Sunday to race a full 16 points ahead of former championship leader and teammate Lando Norris.
But Norris’ fury – and middle finger – was aimed at reigning champion Max Verstappen following their latest on-track clash.
When asked if he had taken too big a risk by trying to go around the outside of the Red Bull, Norris responded: “If I don’t go for it, people complain. If I go for it, people complain.
“So you can’t win. But it’s the way it is with Max – it’s crash or don’t pass.”
Piastri, however, clearly pulled off a Verstappen overtake. “It was a matter of just biding my time, waiting for a moment, or forcing him into a moment,” said the Australian, now the favourite to be 2025 champion.
“That’s what I was able to do.”
As far as former F1 driver Ralf Schumacher is concerned, Norris’ latest Verstappen run-in and reaction is just the latest in an increasingly growing series of slips.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with Norris,” he told Sky Deutschland. “He was always very determined in karting and in other series, but he’s lost that a bit.
“Maybe because he’s too cautious and too worried about losing points and losing ground, but it’s making him lose ground. He urgently needs to work on that.
“He’s also quickly gotten the reputation that the others can just go for it when it comes to racing him. Because we saw that Piastri was able to force Verstappen into a small mistake to get through on the inside,” Schumacher added.
Alain Prost, who was affectionately nicknamed ‘The Professor’ through his successful Formula 1 career, thinks Piastri is clearly winning the psychological war at McLaren.
“Motor racing is obviously played out on the track,” the quadruple world champion told L’Equipe. “Reflexes and the natural talent of the drivers are obviously essential. But motor racing is also played out in the mind.
“Psychology is a crucial element,” the Frenchman, whose own internal battle at McLaren with Ayrton Senna is legendary, added. “It was already like that in my day, but modernity has made it even more crucial to a driver’s success.
“Now, everything is shown, everything is experienced, everything is known,” said the 70-year-old Prost. “Many drivers succumb to this trend, but I think by doing so, they put an insane amount of pressure on themselves.
“Others choose to remain discreet – in my opinion rightly so,” he said. “The new championship leader, Oscar Piastri, hardly talks at all. We don’t know much about his life off the track.
“He’s naturally reserved, disappearing between racing and freeing himself from this pressure.”
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