‘The gloves are off’ – The two things Lando Norris needs to beat Oscar Piastri to the F1 title

Lando Norris has the chance to take the lead of the Formula 1 title race against McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri at the United States Grand Prix.

Just 22 points separate the title contenders with six rounds to go and with this being a sprint weekend, there are 33 points on offer in Austin.

F1 has a long history of dramatic crashes between title rivals, especially if they are teammates, but aside from minor collisions in Canada and Singapore, and some heated radio messages, Piastri and Norris have kept things largely amicable.

But after McLaren clinched the constructors’ title in Marina Bay, one of the tamest championship battles the sport has ever seen is expected to radically heat up.

Jamie Chadwick, three-time W series champion and Sky Sports pundit, has ruled out a dramatic collision between the pair but says the ‘gloves are off’ until the season finale.

‘Earlier in the season, McLaren would be very strong at a track like Austin but now it’s becoming a really close fight, there’s three or four different teams always in contention of being up there now,’ Chadwick told Metro in an exclusive interview.

‘Red Bull are coming into their own, so I think it’s going to be incredibly close. Austin always throws up a bit of a mix, especially with the sprint format.

‘The management at McLaren have, up until this point, kept them [Piastri and Norris] from getting into it generally. They’ve got two drivers that are very level-headed and very, very good wheel-to-wheel racers.

‘But now the gloves are going to be off with the championship at stake. Oscar will have felt hard done by after Singapore. We’re going to see them going at it wheel-to-wheel.

‘Them fully getting into each other and crashing? I’m honestly not sure we will [see that]. But I do think we’re going to see the gloves off and we’re going to see some close battles throughout the rest of the year.’

‘He needs to back his own ability’

Despite having four more years worth of F1 experience over his rival, Norris has at times appeared flustered and unconfident, especially compared to Piastri’s mostly calm and collected nature.

Chadwick says the Brit can triumph with two things: more self-belief and a little misfortune on Piastri’s side.

‘If he believes he can win the championship, he can win the championship,’ the Williams Racing ambassador added.

‘He just needs to be in a position where he believes in himself and backs his own ability and make sure that he’s in the position where he can take it to the wire and be up against someone like Oscar who is so cool, calm and collected.

‘I think that’s what he needs to do, just have that confidence that he can do it and back his ability. He’s got a great team around him. He’s had great performances this year.

‘He needs to score big to get past Oscar with the deficit that he has. He’ll need Oscar to have a very bad weekend again – a DNF to be honest – and score big when that’s happening.

‘The issue they have now is they’ve got Max Verstappen, Mercedes and even Ferrari at times taking points off of them. So that makes it more challenging for Lando, but he really needs Oscar to have a bad weekend to get himself back in contention.’

Genesis Magma Racing driver and Mobil 1 ambassador Jamie Chadwick was speaking to Metro ahead of the final round of the 2025 European Le Mans Series (ELMS). If they triumph in Portugal on Sunday, Chadwick will become the first-ever female driver to win the ELMS Championship.

‘It’s been a season of two halves in a way. Obviously the wins have been amazing and a little bit unexpected.

‘We came into this year just wanting to learn as much as possible, take each race as they come and not put too much expectation or pressure on results immediately – and somehow we came up with two wins in the first two races!

‘And then some tricky races where we didn’t score. To find ourselves still in contention for the championship at the last race is the main thing but our approach doesn’t change, we’re just going to take it as it comes and see what we can do.

‘There’s a lot of very fast, very competitive drivers and teams in this championship. I’m very confident in my team but obviously there’s so many permutations and so many things that have to fall into place to get the championship.

‘So without putting too much pressure on, definitely very confident. I think we’ve got to this point because of the great people in the team. I back them enormously.’

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