Brundle asks the Monza question after Piastri loses title to Norris

“Did Monza impact Piastri in the run-in?”

That’s the telling question that Martin Brundle, and many others around the world, are asking as the analysis of the 2025 campaigns begins, with its highs, its lows, and very notable swings in momentum.

Martin Brundle: Did Monza impact Piastri in the run-in?

While it was clear from the get-go that a McLaren driver would win the F1 2025 World title; the big question was would it be Lando Norris or Oscar Piastri?

Norris led the early rounds before Piastri surged ahead in Saudi Arabia and by Zandvoort, it looked to be a done deal. Piastri clinched his seventh win of the season while Norris retired with an engine issue, and the gap between the teammates grew to 34 points.

But then came Monza.

Although Norris had been running second to Piastri, he found himself behind his teammate after the pit stops due to an issue with his front-left tyre. Piastri was ordered to give the position back to Norris.

He replied: I mean, we said that a slow pit stop was part of racing. I don’t really get what’s changed here. But if you really want to do it, then I’ll do it.”

Irked by that but taking it on the chin, Piastri admitted to “overdriving” in Baku where he crashed in qualifying and the race, later telling the Beyond The Grid podcast: “I think there was kind of some things in the lead-up, let’s say, that were maybe not the most helpful and then things that happened on the weekend.”

As the remainder of the season played out, Piastri was clobbered by Norris in Singapore, played a part in McLaren’s double DNF in the Austin Sprint, and struggled in Mexico and Brazil before a DSQ in Las Vegas cost McLaren.

While he did rebound in Qatar and Abu Dhabi with back-to-back runner-up results, the damage had already been done, and finished the championship in third place, 13 points behind new World Champion Norris.

Norris scored 148 points after Zandvoort to Abu Dhabi, Piastri managed just 101.

Brundle has pondered whether that was set into motion back at Monza already.

Lando Norris v Oscar Piastri: McLaren 2025 head-to-head scores

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

“Did Monza impact Piastri in the run-in?” Brundle wrote in his post-Abu Dhabi column for Sky Sport.

“Norris still doesn’t have Piastri’s absolute laser guided and bold overtaking, and in many races Oscar took his turn to be undisputed class of the field with sensational victories in China, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Miami, Spain, Belgium, and, tellingly, his last of the season nine races ago in the Netherlands in August.

“In Monza, he was asked to hand back a place to Lando after pit stops. For me it was a very clear decision by the team. They asked Lando to yield his priority pit stop, due to being the lead McLaren, over to Oscar to help his teammate defend against Charles Leclerc’s closing Ferrari, with a promise of no undercut.

“Lando played the team game and said ‘yes’ despite it being against his own best interests and it duly happened. Piastri received the first pit stop in 1.9 seconds and, somehow inevitably, Norris’ took a yawning 5.9 seconds and there was indeed an undercut and Piastri was ahead.

“A four-second delay between the McLaren drivers’ pit stops at Monza caused drama as Oscar Piastri undercuts Lando Norris but then eventually hands the position back.

“The team corrected that back out on track. Of course, a slow pit stop is just part of any Grand Prix season but this one was delivered under specific circumstances. At least Piastri was now back in Norris’ DRS range and was told he was free to race, and so still a net gain. Norris duly pulled away because he was the faster car/driver combo on the day.

“If Oscar’s head dropped because of that then he shouldn’t have let that happen. At the next race he had a nightmare with two trips to the wall and a jumped start in Baku, and he wouldn’t see the GP podium again until Qatar, a race weekend when he was head and shoulders above the pack, but only second place in the end due to the team choosing not to pit under the Lap 7 Safety Car.

“Two factors created this fallow phase for Oscar, firstly a generally accepted fact that on low grip surfaces he’s yet to maximise his full potential, but also Max Verstappen and Red Bull found a rich vein of form in winning six of the last nine starts.”

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