Who slept worst last night: Oscar Piastri

A year after Oscar Piastri won the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, while Lando Norris retired with an oil leak, the competitive picture looks radically different. Norris, who at the time said he only wanted to “grab a burger and go home,” was 34 points behind Piastri in the championship after that setback. The piece contrasts the 2025 narrative—questions about Norris as a perennial near-miss and skepticism toward Kimi Antonelli—with the present, where Norris is described as world champion and McLaren’s title hopes increasingly center on him. It argues Piastri has shifted from “champion-in-the-making” to what feels like McLaren’s unofficial second driver, citing that he finished 32 seconds behind Norris at Zandvoort.