Oscar Piastri explains why Lando Norris rivalry never turned 'nasty' at McLaren

Oscar Piastri has insisted that his title fight with McLaren team-mate Lando Norris never damaged their off-track relationship

Oscar Piastri has insisted that his relationship with his McLaren team-mate Lando Norris did not change during their tense championship title battle in 2025.

As the Woking outfit dominated the majority of the 2025 season, the drivers' championship became a fierce battle between the two McLaren drivers, with Red Bull's Max Verstappen joining the fight in the latter part of the year.

The intra-team fight became a big talking point of 2025 with McLaren adopting the approach of allowing both drivers to fight with the provision of not crashing into one another. Ultimately, Norris secured his maiden championship at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Verstappen finished second and Piastri finished third.

While it was tense on track at times, Piastri has confirmed during an appearance on the High Performance podcast that his off-track relationship with Norris has not changed.

"In all honesty, I don't think it really changed, which I don't think anyone really believes or struggles to believe. I think it's very much down to how we are as people," the Australian driver explained.

"I think we're both quite good at separating what happens on the racetrack versus off the racetrack. Our marketing days that we had to do together, for example, were exactly the same.

"We get asked about our relationship as team-mates quite a lot and I think probably it was actually better at the back end of last year than it was in the first six months when we were getting to know each other, because we know each other more, and we spend so much time around one another every year.

Lando Norris, McLaren, Oscar Piastri, McLaren

Photo by: Steven Tee / LAT Images via Getty Images

"So it really didn't change much, because we both knew the situation we were in of trying to beat each other, and only one of us could win. We knew all of that, but it never got nasty. I think that's a really important thing because I think it would have been very easy for last year to have got nasty.

"And if it really got bad, there probably would have been the question of whether one of us was even sitting here doing this interview wearing orange. The team dynamics are so important to protect going forward.

"Obviously, we've not quite started this year the way we want, but it would have been so easy for the battle of last year to make it look 10 times worse and 10 times worse for a long time."

He added: "We obviously had a couple of times where we came together, but there was never... I think in title battles, especially between team-mates, that have turned sour, there's normally been some element of games or trying to hide stuff or something like that.

"For both of us, we're just not really like that. But also, we've seen that play out as well, and it doesn't take much to get into that sequence of, 'I'm going to do this', and then the team-mate goes, 'Oh well, OK I know you did that, so I'm going to do this', and then it just escalates.

"For both of us, even if we did have problems, they were never intentional. Even if we felt like we'd crossed the line either, we never had to confront each other. But I think we both knew if we'd crossed the line ourselves and went, 'My bad.' And the team held us accountable for that as well. We had a good system to keep things friendly."