A carefully worded birthday card has become McLaren’s most entertaining piece of content in recent memory, and Lando Norris may wish it had stayed private.
Oscar Piastri filmed a birthday message for his team-mate after Norris turned 27 on Friday, with McLaren’s media team releasing the clip for public viewing.
The Australian wasted no time in making his 18-months-older colleague feel every bit his age, branding him his “now rather old team-mate” before the card was even opened.
Piastri’s deadpan delivery set up the joke with characteristic precision, noting that 27 puts Norris firmly beyond any reasonable claim to mid-20s status.
“27…wow,” Piastri began in the video, “that’s like, you can’t even classify that as mid-20s anymore, that’s late 20s.”
The real punchline, however, arrived at the bottom of the birthday card, where Piastri cheerfully exposed what he framed as a closely guarded grooming habit.
Reading aloud, Piastri delivered the full message: “Dear Lando, happy birthday. Enjoy your late-20s era. Here’s to another year full of experiences, joy, happiness, surprises and good luck (and marketing), have a wonderful day. P.S. I saw the black hair dye the other day, your secret’s safe with me.”
The parenthetical dig at “marketing” added another layer to a message that managed to tease Norris on multiple fronts simultaneously, all while maintaining plausible birthday card innocence.
That Piastri can summon this kind of dry wit is notable given his own difficult 2026 campaign, which has left him seventh in the drivers’ standings without a single race victory to his name.
Norris, by contrast, is enjoying a more productive season on track, having dominated the most recent race in Brazil to claim his third win of 2026.
The defending champion status Norris carried into this year is gone, with the Briton having been dethroned after his 2025 title, but his pace has remained consistently strong.
Both drivers have spent their entire Formula 1 careers at McLaren, with Norris now completing his eighth season at the top level while Piastri wraps up his fourth year in the sport.
The age gap between the two may be just 18 months, but Piastri appeared determined to make it feel considerably wider for at least one birthday weekend.