Johnny Herbert: McLaren fight is going to be “down to the mentality” of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri

Former Formula 1 driver Johnny Herbert believes that the 2025 drivers’ championship will come “down to the mentality of” McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.

McLaren has had a strong start to the year. It leads the constructors’ championship with 460 points, with a 238-point lead over Ferrari in second. Piastri leads the drivers’ standings with an eight-point lead over his team-mate. In the first 12 races of the year, Piastri has celebrated five victories and Norris four.

The Woking-based squad lets the drivers fight freely on track to a certain extent, creating intense and exciting battles for fans. But a crash ended Norris’ Canadian Grand Prix early when he went for a gap that simply wasn’t there. The team and drivers acknowledged that allowing them to race meant a crash between them was inevitable. 

Following the crash, Norris clinched both the Austrian and British Grands Prix victories.

“Oscar’s come into F1 in a very, very mature way,” Herbert explained to F1.com. “He’s got himself in a good team at the right time and he’s delivering. But then I throw it on the other side, and Lando is improving… he’s probably a later developer in some ways, but he has changed over the last couple of years.

“I think the incident in Canada, the positives of Austria and Silverstone… I always say it’s about capacity, and I think his brain capacity sometimes gets full up.

“There’s the baggage that comes with everything that’s going on, and I know from my own career, there are times where you’ve got to get rid of baggage that’s hanging around your neck.

Lando Norris, McLaren, Oscar Piastri, McLaren

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

“It’s going to be down to the mentality of both of them. But they’re both youngish and they’re only going to get better as time goes by, like Max has done, like Lewis did, Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, Michael Schumacher… they have that wonderful ability to find a way of moving up every time the performance of the car gets better.

“With all the little ups and downs they’ve had, they’re still very, very close overall. It’ll only be one over the other come the end of the year.”

Norris has faced scrutiny over his mental resilience due to his open approach with the media. The British driver doesn’t hide his emotions following races and is often publicly hard on himself. Piastri, on the other hand, had remained level-headed until the British Grand Prix, where his frustrations surrounding a 10-second penalty boiled over after the race.