How McLaren now plan to let Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri decide the 2025 F1 championship

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Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri are separated by just nine points heading into a crucial second half of the 2025 Formula 1 season.

Momentum and form will have gone out the window when the drivers return after the summer break, and the McLaren drivers will have a 10-race shootout to decide who is crowned champion.

Norris won three of the last four races before the holidays, but Piastri was right behind him throughout most of it.

They’re performing at the top of their game, which is a good omen for their team heading into the 2026 F1 regulations. They’re bound to face the odd challenge from Ferrari and Mercedes this year, though.

Zak Brown loves that Norris has silenced critics after finding more consistency on a Sunday and managing to win from pole position more often.

Halfway through the season and McLaren engineers have noticed a Norris and Piastri change, with both having raised the intensity within their garage.

READ MORE: Why McLaren’s 2025 title battle will not reach the same outcome as Lewis Hamilton versus Nico Rosberg

McLaren now plan to let Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri ‘tear each other apart’ for 2025 F1 title

After the Hungarian Grand Prix, McLaren management were ‘thrilled’ with Norris and Piastri for the way that they approached their battle on track.

So far, their engagements haven’t been very explosive, with one collision caused by a miscalculation in Montreal costing Norris a haul of points.

Without that, he’d be in the lead of the drivers’ championship. But what will happen as the season drags on?

According to Sky Sport Italia, journalist Leo Turrini predicts that the McLaren drivers will be able to ‘tear each other apart’ from the Dutch Grand Prix onwards.

For McLaren and their fans, that may be a scary scenario, but for everyone else, it may set up the most fascinating conclusion to a title race since 2021.

READ MORE: Andrea Stella has been constantly telling Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri the same thing amid 2025 title fight

Why Andrea Stella wasn’t ‘keen’ to criticise Oscar Piastri after the Hungarian Grand Prix

Although Norris held on for a vital victory in Hungary, preventing a 14-point swing from tilting in Piastri’s favour, they did come inches from disaster.

The Australian driver’s desperate lunge on lap 69 of 70 left him locking up both front tyres and his teammate on the edge of his seat.

However, Andrea Stella wasn’t ‘keen’ to criticise Piastri after the move and seemed to be satisfied with his drivers for avoiding a coming together.

As soon as the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, McLaren could have the constructors’ title wrapped up. After that is secured for a second consecutive season, it could be gloves off for the final eight rounds of the campaign.