06/05/2025 17:15
Oscar Piastri has made light of the Lewis Hamilton and Fernando
Alonso's fateful season together at McLaren as his F1 title fight
with Lando Norris ramps up. The papaya pair have begun to eek out
an advantage over Max Verstappen and George Russell in the battle
for the drivers' champion this season. They claimed a clean sweep
of one-two finishes at the Miami Grand Prix, their first since the
Chinese Grand Prix, to place the Red Bull and Mercedes drivers
squarely in the rear view mirror for now. Verstappen is now 32
points behind Piastri and 16 adrift of Norris. Russell is a further
six points back. However, intra-team championship battles,
particularly at McLaren, can produce disastrous outcomes. Alain
Prost and Ayrton Senna's ill-tempered tenure together in Woking is
well documented, as is Hamilton and Alonso's calamitous campaign in
2007. The latter is known for imploding into the Spygate saga,
which saw the now-constructors' champions fined a record $100
million. It also cost the team the constructors' title after being
dumped out of the championship as part of its punishment. Relations
between rookie Hamilton and reigning two-time drivers' champion
Alonso descended into chaos and the Spaniard returned to Renault at
the end of the campaign. Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen ended up taking
the title by a point from the pair, which probably is not lost on
Piastri, who made a playful reference to the season when asked
whether the current McLaren team-mates could emulate another one of
Hamilton's tense battles - with Nico Rosberg at Mercedes - this
year. "Yeah, we said that we're trying to repeat 2007, so… I don't
know," he joked to media including RacingNews365 . Tackling the
question more seriously, he added: "We clearly know that we have
our strengths. It's always been close between us. It's going to be
a good battle. "There will be weekends where Lando is stronger, and
weekends where I am stronger." Sustainable success The Australian
left the Miami International Autodrome having extended his
advantage over Norris in the standings from 10 points to 16,
despite finishing second to the 25-year-old in the sprint. To set
the record straight on his 2007 joke, Piastri highlighted how the
pair want to achieve sustained success at McLaren, as both bid for
championship glory. "We're very aware of the fact that we want this
success for as long as we're at McLaren, which is a very long time
for both of us," he said. "We're aware there's going to be a fight.
We both want to become world champion, obviously. But we don't just
want one opportunity at this success. "We want it for the next
however many years, and that's an important and an easy thing to
keep in mind for us and the whole team."
