2021 Formula 2 World Champion Oscar Piastri has been “learning a lot” already this season from McLaren team-mate Lando Norris, with the rookie using the British driver “as a benchmark”.
Piastri has made a very respectable start to his first season in Formula 1, with the Australian having scored his first career points at his home race recently in Australia.
As well as having scored points at the Australian Grand Prix, Piastri is the only McLaren driver this season to have progressed to Q3, something Norris is yet to achieve.
Piastri made it to Q3 at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, where he astonishingly lined-up on the grid alongside seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton.
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He is certainly an exceptional driver who will likely test Norris’ skills, with the 23-year-old having spent the past two seasons out-performing Daniel Ricciardo.
For the time being, though, Piastri’s focus isn’t on beating Norris to claim top McLaren honours, with him instead focusing on learning from his team-mate.
“I’ve definitely been learning a lot from Lando,” Piastri said.
“Not just how to drive this car specifically, but also just the way we do debriefs and attention to detail and stuff like that.
“I think there’s always areas to try and improve. So it’s been good to have him as a benchmark, definitely.
“I think Lando is very much established himself in his career so far as a high quality driver, so even just working alongside him definitely I can see that.”
Norris has already admitted this season that Piastri is “keeping me on my toes” but has also praised the 22-year-old for giving McLaren similar feedback to what he’s giving the Woking-based side.
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With Norris and Piastri having fed similar information back to the team, McLaren have been able to identify a clear direction to take with the MCL60, something which Piastri notices as being “good for the team”.
“I feel like similar to what Lando said, we’re working in a very similar way in terms of what we want from the car,” Piastri said.
“I think we’re working in a very similar way, which is good for the team. For the engineering side of things that gives them a very clear direction.”