Oscar Piastri has got into Lando Norris' head, claims 7x F1 winner

Former F1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya believes Oscar Piastri has influenced Lando Norris' mindset, resulting in an excessive number of mistakes from the British driver. The 2025 F1 season has been interesting and surprising.

At the start of the season, Lando Norris was earmarked as the lead driver at McLaren. The British driver has been brilliant in general and more or less has had the edge over his teammate, Oscar Piastri. This season, however, the tide seems to have turned completely.

Oscar Piastri has won three of five races this season. He's also leading the championship standings, with Lando Norris in second place. A lot seems to have happened because of the surprisingly mistake-prone nature of the British driver, who has been making far too many errors this season and hurting his chances in races.

Talking about how Lando Norris has approached the season, Juan Pablo Montoya opined that Oscar Piastri was in his teammate's head, which has played a major role in Norris making far too many mistakes. As quoted by Crash.net, Montoya said:

"Absolutely, Oscar Piastri has got inside Lando Norris’s head. Lando just wants so much more that it’s not there, realistically. I think somebody needs to be on Lando’s corner to go to him and say, ‘Just stop looking at Oscar. Just do you.’ At the weekend, he said he felt clueless and like he’d never driven an F1 car before. Then he made those mistakes.”

Montoya added that if Lando Norris can clear his head, he could comfortably beat Oscar Piastri at McLaren.

"What you can see clearly is that he’s putting enough pressure on Lando to force him into making mistakes. If Lando stays in his bubble and does what Lando does best without worrying about Oscar, I think Lando could beat him pretty easily," Montoya added.

Oscar Piastri closing the gap has caused Lando Norris to make mistakes, says Juan Pablo Montoya

Unlike the last couple of seasons, where Oscar Piastri was always half a step behind Lando Norris, the Australian has significantly closed the gap to his teammate this season. As a result, it is always quite intense between the two.

When that happens, both drivers have to bring their A-game to beat their rivals. According to Montoya, that's where Norris is struggling, as he's still trying to beat Oscar Piastri by a gap of around three-tenths, and such a gap is just not possible, which is resulting in mistakes. Talking about how Oscar has turned the tables on Norris, Montoya said in the same interview:

"The problem is, Oscar is getting too close for him. I think Lando wants to see like a two or three tenths of a second gap where he can relax. When he has that, he can push comfortably knowing he has that cushion. But when that cushion is not there, he tries to create a cushion when it’s not needed."

He added:

“You can be on pole by half a tenth, or a tenth. But he’s not looking to be on pole by a tenth of a second – he wants three or four. And that’s where the mistakes are coming. They are self-inflicted.”

We're just five races into the season, and hence the title battle is surely going to intensify as the year unravels further.