Oscar Piastri’s father speaks out on ‘reported to death’ McLaren bias talk

Unfounded claims of bias within McLaren, in favour of Lando Norris over Oscar Piastri, has been a prevalent subplot as the gripping F1 2025 championship battle reaches its climax in Abu Dhabi.

However, on the eve of that crucial title-deciding race, Chris Piastri, the father of championship hopeful Oscar, has moved to shut down any suggestion of a calculated move from McLaren to disadvantage his son versus teammate and title rival Norris.

Oscar Piastri father does not ‘buy into’ McLaren bias talk

A title battle full of twists and turns has reached its climax in Abu Dhabi. Norris holds a 12-point championship lead going into the Grand Prix. He will start from P2, with closest challenger Max Verstappen on pole. Piastri is third.

If the race finished with that top three order, it would suit Norris just fine. 12 points clear of Verstappen, Norris can afford to finish as low as fourth should Verstappen win the race from pole.

Piastri, meanwhile, has the most difficult task of all the title hopefuls. 16 points behind McLaren teammate Norris, he will require significant assistance to secure a first world championship in Abu Dhabi.

It has been quite the roller coaster ride for Piastri to this point. He led the championship by 34 points from Norris after the Dutch GP, but an alarming slump in form turned the title picture on its head.

Piastri returned to form just in time by winning the Qatar Sprint, while a McLaren strategy error cost him the Grand Prix win. Nonetheless, Piastri trimmed his deficit to Norris to 16 points, giving himself an outside chance of winning his first world championship.

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Qatar further fuelled the unsubstantiated internet rumours of McLaren bias towards Norris. While it was the Brit who suffered most in terms of positions from the strategy mishap, Piastri potentially missed out on crucial points in the title fight by not winning the race which he displayed the pace to win.

The conspiracy theories – consistently denied by McLaren – took off back at Monza, where Piastri was asked to move aside for Norris, who suffered a slow pit-stop, dropping him behind Piastri. It was a request, in the name of fairness from McLaren, which Piastri followed.

But, speaking ahead of the Abu Dhabi GP, Oscar’s father Chris Piastri shut down this long-running claim of McLaren favouritism towards Norris.

He pointed to the Monza swap order as the key contributor to those unfounded claims which began to escalate among fans online.

“There’s been a couple of obvious ones (strategic mistakes) that have been sort of reported on to death — Monza being the standout — but I don’t sort of buy into it too much,” Chris Piastri told Code Sports on the bias talk.

“From Oscar’s side of things, there’s just been a few races where they sort of got away from him. Baku obviously was a big one but also Austin and Mexico where he just struggled for pace.

“There’s absolutely nothing behind the scenes there. I don’t think there’s anything I would put my finger on.

“If there was something there then the best way to fight it is just win the races, and put it beyond doubt, so that if there is any little conscious or unconscious bias within the team that it doesn’t matter, there’s nothing that can be done about it.”

Chris added: “He certainly won’t buy into any angle that somehow he was robbed by the team of the championship. I don’t think that’s true anyway.”

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