2025: the year of McLaren
The 2025 season saw two different moments for McLaren, one favorable to Oscar Piastri and the other more positive for his teammate Lando Norris, who with a series of results managed to win the world title. In the first half of the championship, the Australian had collected reassuring performances to hold the world leadership, only to then make mistakes or fail to repeat them from the Azerbaijan GP onwards, even losing second place in the world standings to Max Verstappen.
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The episodes
Regardless of what the final results were, the duel between the two drivers of the Woking team gave life to an all-McLaren rivalry for the championship, made even more heated by episodes such as the contact that occurred in the Canadian GP, the rules of conduct imposed by the team on the drivers (better known as ‘Papaya Rules’), or even the team order requested of Piastri during the Italian GP, a fact that had led some to think of favoritism towards Norris.
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The rivalry
A question, the one about the internal rivalry, to which Piastri responded in an interview with Quad Lock, also referring to all the rumors that have circulated about the relationship between the two: “The media plays a huge role in F1, whether you like it or not – he explained – there have certainly been difficult questions, difficult interviews and complicated moments. For me it is quite simple to distinguish between the story that the media tries to sell and what is actually happening. There have been some difficult moments behind closed doors, but it hasn’t been as catastrophic or a sort of World War III as some media like to describe it“.
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