McLaren told to prioritise Oscar Piastri in F1 2025 title fight

McLaren would be better off prioritising Oscar Piastri in this year’s Formula 1 title battle, believes six-time grand prix winner Riccardo Patrese.

McLaren has been the team to beat in the 2025 F1 season so far, turning the drivers’ championship into a two-horse race between Piastri and Lando Norris.

However, with reigning champion Max Verstappen and Mercedes driver George Russell also scoring race wins, McLaren doesn’t have a comfortable margin over its rivals.

That has left the door open for other teams to capitalise on any missteps,  especially if the two McLaren drivers end up tripping over each other.

In the Canadian GP, Piastri and Norris were involved in their first on-track collision, with the Briton retiring from the race immediately after colliding with his teammate at the start/finish straight.

Given the closeness of the title battle, Patrese believes McLaren should now back Piastri over Norris, highlighting the Australian’s mental strength and current points lead.

The 71-year-old drew comparison with his own journey in F1, having been asked to play second fiddle to Nelson Piquet during their time as teammates at Brabham in 1973.

“I would put Piastri first. I think he's a bit stronger in the head than Norris and also he has more points than Norris at the moment,” Patrese told Listofsweepstakescasinos.com.

“Zak Brown can make a decision because it happened to me in ‘83. I had approximately the same points as Nelson Piquet but then I crashed in Acque Minerali in Imola and then we had to fight again with the Renault and the Ferraris.

“In the end, they decided because our engine was not very reliable and of course, Ferrari and Renault had more experience with the turbo engine. They said okay, ‘Riccardo crashing up the Aqua Minerali, now we need to go with one driver to fight them and decide to give this opportunity to Nelson’.

“They decided that I had to do the work as a tester of new parts of the engine that could test in maybe one Grand Prix earlier to see if they were reliable or not.  And then they were putting on the Nelson car because, of course, they could check if they broke down.

“So in the end, there was this choice and discussion that they decided and it was the right choice because we won the championship with Nelson. They still sacrificed me. Anyway, as a professional driver, I accepted it because I was in the team to work for the team.

“So at the end, that was the fourth Grand Prix of the season. Very early in the season. And it worked. Nelson won the championships and I won the last Grand Prix in South Africa and it was a big party at the end of course.”

Norris’ first retirement of 2025 has given Piastri a 22-point buffer in the standings heading into this weekend’s Austrian GP.

The Australian also has won five of the 10 grands prix held so far compared to just two for his more experienced teammate.

Assessing the intra-team rivalry at McLaren, Patrese said: “Piastri looks more consistent, more cool, makes less mistakes than Norris. Norris can be fantastic in one race, like it was, for example, in Monte Carlo. But it looks like sometimes he feels the pressure more than Piastri.

About McLaren’s prospects for the remainder of the season, he added: “Everything can happen. In Montreal, the McLaren cars didn’t look very special. Yes, very competitive but not as dominant as it was for example in Barcelona and other places. I don't know if there is a reason why they went back a little bit because they didn't like the track for example. Or because somebody else had some improvement like the Mercedes in Montreal.

“It's true that Montreal has always been a circuit with a difference so maybe also a car that was not fantastic and could go well in that circuit or opposite a car that was very good in medium-high speed corners maybe in Montreal was not special. So maybe that could be the story. But we have to check in the next races what happened.”