Nico Rosberg believes Oscar Piastri’s mental fortitude could be the decisive factor in McLaren’s all-out fight for the 2025 Formula 1 world championship, warning that teammate Lando Norris must strengthen his own mindset to keep his title hopes alive.
Piastri currently holds a nine-point lead over Norris in the standings, with six race wins to the Briton’s five.
Norris, however, has mounted a strong comeback, taking three victories in the last four races to eat into Piastri’s early-season advantage.
Rosberg Questions Norris’s Mental Resilience
Having closely followed the McLaren’s pair duel, Rosberg says Piastri and Norris are now evenly matched on pace, but that the Briton remain vulnerable to his mental weakness.
"You can't really say that Lando is a smidge quicker anymore,” Rosberg told the Sky Sports F1 podcast. “At some point we need to stop saying that because there's no basis to that anymore. Oscar has just been extremely quick always, and I see them kind of on a par.
"The championship is going to be decided in Lando's head. That's my kind of impression unfortunately, it's how solid can Lando become.
"I know he's working on it, blocking social media and all of those things.”
Rosberg also warned that Piastri’s complete driver profile leaves little room for Norris to exploit any weakness.
"Oscar is super strong,” Rosberg added. “He's surprised me because we all knew he was a great driver, but last year, Lando still had the edge. This year, Oscar is just incredibly solid, strong and fast.
"There's no weaknesses there. What's his weakness? There are no more, which is a bit scary for Lando because Lando does have weaknesses.”
Piastri: ‘I always find it reasonably easy to move on’
The championship leader has made occasional mistakes this year – a spin in wet conditions at his home race in Melbourne and a costly safety car penalty at Silverstone among them – but has shown little sign of letting such setbacks affect him for long.
"For me, I always find it reasonably easy to move on from that,” Piastri said when asked if he spends much time dwelling on errors.
"And you know, if you start going down that rabbit hole, you can start thinking about all kinds of things.
"And it's not like I'm the only one that's lost points one way or another. I think in the grand scheme of things, that always, that kind of thing always nets itself out reasonably well. So yeah, I never think about it too much."
With ten races still to run, the McLaren duo’s title battle shows no signs of cooling – but if Rosberg’s prediction proves correct, it may be the contest inside Norris’s head that ultimately determines who lifts the trophy in Abu Dhabi.
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