McLaren warned over threat to F1 driver line-up

McLaren has been warned Oscar Piastri may look to leave if he does not feel "prioritised" by the Woking-based team.

Although the F1 constructors' champion maintains it has no 'number one' driver, Lando Norris was the preferred option toward the end of last season, as he tried to put together a drivers' title challenge against Red Bull's Max Verstappen.

The 25-year-old ultimately fell short, but former F1 driver Johnny Herbert thinks the papaya squad should now be concerned with not pushing away his team-mate.

To the three-time grand prix winner, the Australian has the power to shift the dynamics at McLaren around, even though it will almost certainly return to papaya rules at the start of the 2025 F1 season.

"I think Oscar Piastri believes in himself and will make a move to another team if he feels he’s not prioritised at McLaren," Herbert told Casinoutanspelpaus.io. 

"He doesn’t really care about what people say and I think within a team, that’s the right attitude to have. It’s an attitude that could shift things within McLaren, as Piastri has all the ingredients to be a shining light of a driver.

"He hasn’t peaked in any shape or form, he’s still going to learn from the experiences he had last year and he’s going to try and use those against whoever he’s racing."

Piastri will want to 'dominate' Norris at McLaren

Along with Norris racking up four grand prix victories to Piastri's two, in large part built on superior qualifying pace, the British driver scored 82 more points than his team-mate last season.

Nevertheless, Herbert expects Piastri to start the campaign - which gets underway with his home race in Melbourne - "wanting to dominate" at McLaren.

He believes the 23-year-old's character makes him the "interesting one" compared to Norris, who will head into the season looking to continue enjoying the upper hand. 

"Oscar is the interesting one [at McLaren] just because of his character," Herbert said. "His character seems to be ’I don’t give a damn, I would do what I need to do to be able to win that race’.

"Although there was all the issues that we had last year with the team and strategy calls that they made, I think now he’s going to be let loose, a fresh new season, new start.

"I think he’s going to come out wanting to dominate and make sure that he is seen as the number one driver at McLaren and I think that is going to be his number one goal."