SAKHIR, Bahrain -- As Lando Norris flubbed his way through the Bahrain Grand Prix, his flawless McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri turned in a drive of championship quality.
Piastri's near-perfect race weekend out in front -- his fourth Formula 1 race win in 50 starts -- was a stark contrast to Norris, who admitted to feeling "clueless" with his car after qualifying sixth on Sunday. By Sunday evening, after a slightly messy drive to third, Norris admitted he still does not feel like he has clicked with McLaren's class-leading MCL39. It's a stark and worrying admission for a man looking to win his first world title this season.
Asked if there were any positives he could take from the race, Norris said on Sunday evening: "That I finished, probably."
The feeling at McLaren has done a 180 since the beginning of the year, when Norris was preseason favorite and Piastri was the mega talented, but less consistent, teammate who needed to make strides forward to emerge as a title contender, especially in qualifying. The Australian has made those improvements, and then some, and his flawless drive out in front had all the hallmarks of a man ready to win it all.
On the basis of Bahrain, and how the season has looked so far between them, if you were to make a call of which of them would win at this moment, it would be impossible to bet against Piastri.
It's too early to even start writing off Norris, of course, and it's important not to get carried away with one poor weekend. Context is key: Despite not feeling at one with McLaren's car this season, he still leads the championship, albeit now by a slender three points over his teammate, with 20 races left to run. There's a long way to go and plenty of time for Norris to get right with the car.
There's also a long time for Piastri to keep getting better, though too.
The stark contrast between the two all weekend was telling. This comes after weekends in China, where Piastri finished ahead in the sprint and won the grand prix, and Japan, where Piastri's request to be let past Norris was denied by the McLaren pit wall.
Piasti's constant improvement has become impossible to ignore. The third-year racer has leveled up quicker than most at McLaren expected, and Norris appears to be struggling to reckon with the challenge.
Norris scruffy, Piastri superb
Norris' race was messy from the beginning. After the formation lap, he initially lined up short of his grid box; he then overcorrected, meaning he lined up too far forward. The eagle-eyed Max Verstappen, starting behind and to the left of Norris, noticed and immediately radioed his Red Bull team.
It was a big mistake, one that left Norris on the back foot. McLaren pitted earlier than planned to try to mitigate the five-second penalty that came with his start-line mishap.
"Every time I did one thing good, I did two bad, in a way," Norris said, summing up his performance. "I just kept stopping myself from making as much progress as I should have done."
Mistakes dogged Norris' 2024 season, when he emerged as a championship outsider after his breakthrough Miami Grand Prix victory, and they appear to have trickled over into this campaign. By contrast, missteps on the other side of the garage are hard to find. In fact, there might only be one notable moment when Piastri has fallen short so far in 2025.
His miscalculation in Australia, running wide as the rain worsened, eventually spinning and briefly getting stranded in the grass, turned what looked to be a nailed-on second place into ninth. Norris made an identical error ahead, as they ran first and second, but recovered to win the race. The consequence for the two McLaren drivers could not have been more different.
Lando Norris questions his recent form with McLaren after the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Since that moment, which is the only reason Piastri does not leave Bahrain as the championship leader, he has been superb.
Bahrain was his second win of the season, while that opening day victory is the only one Norris has to his name this year. It felt like a statement performance under the lights of Sakhir.
"Maybe not all the results have been exactly what I wanted, but I think this weekend has definitely been the result I wanted," Piastri said on Sunday evening. "To have a weekend like we have had this weekend is a really meaningful result outside of the victory."
The contrast between the two drivers is not just on track. McLaren team principal Andrea Stella spoke revealingly about Piastri on Saturday, shortly after his weekend-defining pole position.
"I've always said that there's no noise in Oscar's head, which is a very useful characteristic in Formula 1," Stella said.
Norris has never made any secret about the noise in his own. The Englishman's approach to his mental health is admirable, talking candidly about it during the pandemic, but his willingness to to open up and self-criticize has been a stick used to beat him with in recent years. Controversial Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko was criticized last year for suggesting that Norris was "not the strongest mentally" after the 25-year-old opened up about feeling anxious on the morning of F1 races.
This is where there is another big difference between Norris and Piastri. While the former has become known in the paddock for giving long, thoughtful answers, sometimes digging himself into a hole in the process, the latter is much more direct with what he says. Sources have told ESPN that Piastri has actually made a point of answering in an understated manner more recently, wary of how it contrasts to his teammate. This difference likely will become even more pronounced as the year goes on.
Norris' honesty has always been an endearing and compelling part of his personality. He was in no mood to shy away from his openness after the race, despite admitting he felt like he needed to go back to the drawing board to work out how to kickstart his championship campaign.
When asked on Sunday if he was worried that being so hard on himself could lead to a spiral, Norris replied: "I think it will be even harder for me to not show any of these things. "When I do my interviews and whatever, like a lot of it is just probably just getting my frustration out. It's just because I'm not achieving what I want to achieve.
"When I'm hard on myself, I'm very disappointed in myself, but, when I'm doing the interviews and saying things I do, I don't think it necessarily has a bad impact on myself negatively. I've done it so much my whole life. I've learned how to block my own comments away from my thoughts.
Oscar Piastri and George Russell speak after finishing first and second at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
"Maybe sometimes I lack a bit of self-belief, and I have done in the past, but that's just also me. It's the way I do things. It's the way I work. It's what has made me as good as I am. And probably maybe at times has limited me from becoming a better driver ... but I'm happy. I know what I can do and I'm happy. I think what I can do and what I can achieve is good enough and easily up there with the best."
It's not all doom and gloom in the Norris camp. Throughout the difficult moments last year, he came through repeatedly.
After months of criticism about his race craft and how he appeared to come off second best too often in wheel-to-wheel battles with Verstappen, Norris turned in a clutch performance at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to clinch McLaren the constructors' championship after Piastri got spun around at the start by the Dutchman. Norris was also flawless in Singapore last year. The memory of those performances must be adding to his frustration at how disconnected he's felt from McLaren's 2025 car so far.
There's no doubt that Norris will dig deep within himself in the short turnaround between Bahrain and next Sunday's Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. One of the obvious factors he will have to reckon with, beyond his own jittery performances, is that the bar across the garage from him has clearly been raised. Piastri looks like a calm, unflappable monster in the other McLaren and it is Norris on the back foot heading to Jeddah, the third race in as many weekends.
It's too early to start making predictions about which way 2025 will go, but Piastri looks unstoppable at the moment. If he wants to turn the tide, Norris must strike back quickly and rekindle some of his 2024 magic before the season starts to get away from him.