Jolyon Palmer says Lando Norris has been ‘hobbled’ in Oscar Piastri battle at McLaren

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Jolyon Palmer has played down Oscar Piastri’s initial advantage over Lando Norris in the head-to-head at McLaren. Norris is ahead in the championship, but Piastri appears to be the quicker of the two at this stage.

Despite being unable to start the opening two races, Piastri is only four points behind Norris in the standings. He crashed on the lap to the grid in Australia and was sidelined in China by an electrical issue.

However, Piastri leads the qualifying battle 3-0, and after finally making his first start in Japan, he produced a stellar performance to finish second, McLaren’s best result of 2026 so far.

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Why Jolyon Palmer isn’t reading into Oscar Piastri’s McLaren advantage

Speaking on the F1 Nation podcast, Palmer explained that Norris had been hampered by multiple car problems in practice sessions. The reigning world champion was limited to just seven laps in FP1 at the Australian GP due to a transmission issue.

In Japan last time out, he spent 20 minutes in the garage during FP2 because of a hydraulic leak, which prevented a meaningful long run. Norris only managed 13 laps the following morning in FP3, too.

Across the first three race weekends, Piastri has completed 130 laps in practice compared to Norris’ 99. Given that the drivers are still learning how to optimise their batteries in the new generation of cars, one can see how that disparity might have an impact.

“I feel like Norris has not had a very good run of things,” said Palmer. “China, in the Sprint, he outqualified Oscar. There was not much in it, but he lost out in the China qualifying. Neither of them started the race.

“In Melbourne and Japan, he’s had so many issues going through practice that I don’t think we’ve seen Lando on a clean weekend as a reference against Oscar.

“In terms of the comparison, when you’ve got one car being hobbled and only running half of practice, it does make a fair comparison a little bit harder.”

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In 2024, Norris almost always beat Piastri over a single lap. The end-of-year score was 21-3 in the Briton’s favour.

Naturally, Piastri and his engineers identified this as the main weakness he needed to address before 2025. They did so to great effect, levelling the head-to-head at 12-12 and winning 16-14 when Sprint qualifying sessions were included.

• READ MORE: Oscar Piastri surprised McLaren by masking the MCL40’s two main flaws in the Japanese Grand Prix

Now there are signs that Piastri is starting to become too fast for Norris, at least on low fuel.

The battle isn’t receiving the same attention this year given McLaren’s regression, but Piastri’s growth will be particularly important if they return to victory contention.

Piastri was leading the Japanese GP until a safety car worked against him, though some have criticised McLaren for a defensive strategy. Given Kimi Antonelli’s 14-second lead at the chequered flag, he may not have held on regardless.