F1 legends handicap Lando Norris-Oscar Piastri title fight
As the second half of the 2025 F1 season unfolds, former drivers weigh in on the title fight between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri
The second half of the 2025 Formula 1 season is upon us.
After a two-week layoff, the grid returns to action with the Belgian Grand Prix, one of two races before the August summer shutdown. But with 12 race weekends left, the Drivers’ Championship remains a fight between McLaren teammates Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris. Piastri maintains an eight-point lead over Norris, but the British driver has won consecutive Grands Prix for the first time in his career and heads to Spa in fine form.
How might this battle between McLaren drivers unfold over the final half of the season?
The official F1 website spoke with five living legends — 2009 Champion Jenson Button, 1997 Drivers’ Champion Jacques Villeneuve, 13-time Grand Prix winner and F1TV analyst David Coulthard, three-time Grand Prix winner Johnny Herbert, and 12-time podium finisher Stefan Johansson — about the major storylines from the season, including the Norris-Piastri title fight.
Each living legend sees this bout going down to the final bell.
“If it was half a World Championship, Oscar’s won,” began Coulthard. “I don’t think anyone could say he hasn’t deserved to be leading – he was leading before [the McLarens] came together in Canada. But if Lando turns it around in the second half of the season, he’s doing it against someone that’s a talented third year F1 driver. It’s a bit like 2021, where some people are still so vocal about what happened… only one driver could win. Both Max and Lewis Hamilton drove like World Champions that year, but only one of them could have the title.”
The former Red Bull and McLaren driver praised his former team for how they are handling the fight.
“I think McLaren have handled it really well. I think both their drivers are on the tamer side of animal than the wilder side of animal, so that probably makes it a little bit easier,” added Coulthard. “But this could also be their only chance to win a world title; we don’t know what 2026 brings, we don’t know what the future is, so you’ve got to seize the moment. That’s why I’m really impressed with how Oscar has stepped up this year. But Lando’s response over the last two races is showing his quality as well. I think it’s going to be one of those things where both of them deserve it, but only one can get it.”
Johansson noted that who wins the title might come down to the “circumstances.”
“I think it’s going to go down to the wire. In the end, it will probably be circumstances that tip the outcome of the championship. Because speed-wise they’re so close, it’s probably going to come down to race craft, reading situations the right way, and avoiding any sort of unforced errors, if you like,” said Johansson. “Oscar had his penalty at Silverstone, which you can debate whether it was justified or not, but I think things like that, or Lando’s incident in Montreal… those are the things that are going to tip the scale at the end of the year.”
Two of the former drivers, Button and Herbert, praised Piastri’s mental approach. This mirrors what McLaren CEO Zak Brown told me about Piastri during his rookie season, and how the Australian driver slowly builds up over a race weekend and almost always keeps his composure.
“Austria was a really important weekend for Lando. I think if it went on any longer without Lando winning, mentally it’s very tough for a driver. Especially someone like Lando, who I think can be his own worst enemy at times – he puts a lot of pressure on himself. He’s unbelievably quick, but if he makes a tiny mistake, he really takes it to heart,” said Button.
“He’s got to realise that we all make mistakes. It happens, it’s part of racing, and more often than not you lose rather than win. I love his personality, and I really think he’s super-quick. Oscar’s a very different personality, very level-headed. Nothing seems to faze him, and that makes him a very, very difficult competitor … “
“Oscar’s come into F1 in a very, very mature way,” began Herbert. “He’s got himself in a good team at the right time and he’s delivering. But then I throw it on the other side, and Lando is improving … he’s probably a later developer in some ways, but he has changed over the last couple of years. I think the incident in Canada, the positives of Austria and Silverstone … I always say it’s about capacity, and I think his brain capacity sometimes gets full up. There’s the baggage that comes with everything that’s going on, and I know from my own career, there are times where you’ve got to get rid of baggage that’s hanging around your neck.
“It’s going to be down to the mentality of both of them. But they’re both youngish and they’re only going to get better as time goes by, like Max has done, like Lewis did, Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, Michael Schumacher… they have that wonderful ability to find a way of moving up every time the performance of the car gets better,” continued Herbert, who won in Silverstone in 1995. “With all the little ups and downs they’ve had, they’re still very, very close overall. It’ll only be one over the other come the end of the year.”
Like the other legends, Villeneuve did not predict the winner — Button perhaps came closest with how he ended his thoughts — but the winner of the 1997 Drivers’ Championship did outline how Silverstone may have reshaped the race.
“It’s great because they’re very different. Both can win it, and we don’t know which one will get the upper hand. I think Norris still has the edge speed-wise, but he’s so good at berating himself that it’s also self-damaging at some point,” began Villeneuve.
“With Piastri, it was the first time he got a penalty at Silverstone, and that saw a bit of a change of attitude. When you’re fighting for the championship, it really changes your approach. We’ve seen Norris being in the lead of the championship, being behind, fighting back, so we’ve seen kind of everything that Norris is. We haven’t seen everything that Piastri is and how he reacts in certain situations. Will that make him better or worse? That’s what I’m waiting to see.”
You can read their full thoughts on the rest of the season, including Lewis Hamilton’s start at Ferrari and the future of Max Verstappen at Red Bull, on the official F1 website.