{"id":270251,"date":"2025-07-17T20:48:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T20:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/270251\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T20:48:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T20:48:10","slug":"martin-brundle-makes-mclaren-prediction-after-cheeky-oscar-piastri-ploy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/270251\/","title":{"rendered":"Martin Brundle makes McLaren prediction after \u2018cheeky\u2019 Oscar Piastri ploy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sky F1 pundit Martin Brundle predicts fireworks between McLaren drivers Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris as they battle one another for the F1 2025 world championship.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The McLaren duo sit at the head of the Drivers\u2019 Championship standings at the halfway point of the season, separated by just eight points.<\/p>\n

Martin Brundle predicts fireworks in McLaren championship fight<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher<\/p>\n

The British Grand Prix marked the halfway point in the season, a race won by Norris after Piastri was deemed to have driven erratically behind the Safety Car and penalised 10 seconds.<\/p>\n

It was a controversial decision, with the Australian a victim of circumstance and coincidence; as he applied the brakes to warm his brakes and tyres, the lights on the Safety Car were turned off.<\/p>\n

Leading at the time, Piastri served the penalty at his final stop. The delay dropped him behind Norris for the final laps, with the Brit hanging on to win his home race.<\/p>\n

That was not for a want of trying from the Australian, who even suggested McLaren reverse the positions in light of what he termed was an \u201cunfair\u201d penalty.<\/p>\n

The pit wall was unmoved, and Piastri followed his team-mate across the line to see his championship advantage to just eight points.<\/p>\n

It prompted Brundle to predict a lively back half of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems the Drivers\u2019 Championship showdown will indeed be between Piastri and Norris, and we can expect some fireworks there,\u201d he wrote in his Sky Sports column.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the first time we\u2019ve seen the angry side of the calm silent Aussie assassin. Oscar\u2019s radio call for the places to be swapped if the team thought he\u2019d received an unfair penalty was more than cheeky, though.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd frankly they may as well hand the constructors\u2019 trophy over to McLaren and save time in what will be a very short winter in F1 land.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more on McLaren\u2019s title fight<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49 Zak Brown delivers latest McLaren team orders update<\/a><\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49 Oscar Piastri predicts championship nail-biter with Lando Norris<\/a><\/p>\n

Piastri addressed the motives, and his expectations, following the Silverstone encounter.<\/p>\n

Initially reluctant to discuss his penalty in post-race interviews, he finally opened up, admitting he was confused given his actions were consistent with previous laps, and an earlier Safety Car period.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah. I thought I would ask the question,\u201d he said of his suggesting McLaren swap the cars around in the closing stages.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew what the answer was going to be before I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I just wanted a small glimmer of hope that maybe I could get it back. But no, I knew it wasn\u2019t going to happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything wrong with it,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cLando didn\u2019t do anything wrong. I don\u2019t think it would have been particularly fair to have swapped, but I thought I\u2019d at least ask.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t change much for the Championship. I feel like I did a good job today. I did what I needed to. That\u2019s all I need, and I will use the frustration to make sure I win some more races later.\u201d<\/p>\n

McLaren has refused to employ team orders this year, staying true to its mantra of affording both Norris and Piastri equal opportunity to take the title.<\/p>\n

Underlying that is consideration of the greater good, and McLaren\u2019s own championship ambitions, which take precedence over the drivers\u2019 title.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs part of the way we go racing together as a team, with Lando and Oscar, we always tell our drivers: \u2018Don\u2019t keep things in the back of your mind when you drive\u2019,\u201d Stella explained to media including PlanetF1.com at Silverstone.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have a point, if you have a suggestion, if you want let us know what you\u2019re thinking, just say it, and then we will evaluate with our people, we will make a decision, we will come back to you.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, I think what Oscar did is exactly what we incentivise our drivers to do. He communicated, he expressed his opinion, which we evaluated.\u201d<\/p>\n

McLaren banked another 43-points in Silverstone, the team\u2019s second one-two in as many races, and now boasts 460 points in the Constructors\u2019 Championship, more than double the tally of Ferrari in second place.<\/p>\n

Read next:\u00a0Alain Prost makes new Oscar Piastri claim after Alpine to McLaren transfer<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sky F1 pundit Martin Brundle predicts fireworks between McLaren drivers Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris as they battle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[4199,707,4200,225,5267,1710,12,1712,12591,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-270251","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-formula-1","10":"tag-formula1","11":"tag-home-page","12":"tag-martin-brundle","13":"tag-mclaren","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-oscar-piastri","16":"tag-sky-f1","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114870544314221901","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}