Australia’s last world champion has backed Oscar Piastri to prevail in his championship fight with his McLaren team mate.
Alan Jones, who won the world title for Williams in 1980, called Piastri “a pretty strong minded young kid.” Piastri took the lead of the world championship from his team mate Lando Norris by winning the last round and Jones said there is “no question” he can stay ahead.
“The first person you’ve got to beat is your team mate,” Jones told Fox. “At the end of the day, his team mate is weak.”
Norris has a reputation for being strongly critical of himself when he makes mistakes and has been forthright about his self-doubt in the past. He won the opening round of the season under race-long pressure from Piastri and Max Verstappen but hasn’t scored another victory since, saying he feels less comfortable with the latest McLaren than last year’s car.
Jones believes Piastri can beat Norris to the title
“His team mate is quite quick, there’s no doubt about that,” said Jones. “But mentally, I think he’s quite a weak person. He’s coming out with all this nonsense that he’s got a bit of a mental thing, he’s dwelling on some of the problems he’s had rather than the positives.
“When they start talking all that nonsense, you know you’ve got them.”
Norris finished second in the drivers’ championship to Verstappen last year. During the season Red Bull motorsport consultant Helmut Marko also cast doubt on Norris’s toughness, saying he “has some mental weaknesses.”
Marko’s comments drew strong criticism from McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown at the time. “Lando has been kind of an ambassador for mental health,” said Brown. “Toto [Wolff]’s spoken about mental health. So I think it’s a serious issue that we’ve tried to talk about to bring to the forefront, make it okay to talk about.
“So to maybe kind of choose [to] poke at that situation I think is pretty inappropriate and kind of sets us back ten, 20 years. It’s all fun and games in how some people go racing and what tactics they use from a sporting perspective but I thought that one was in pretty poor taste.”
Miss nothing from RaceFans
Get a daily email with all our latest stories – and nothing else. No marketing, no ads. Sign up here:
News
