Oscar Piastri hands Lando Norris surprise F1 defeat despite title heartbreak

Despite losing out to Lando Norris in the drivers' championship after his late-season wobble in form, Oscar Piastri did beat his team-mate in one key area in 2025.

Norris walked away with the trophy following a late-season blossoming, which was just enough to defeat the charging Max Verstappen to the title as Piastri, who led for 15 of the 24 rounds, slipped to third, just 13 points behind his team-mate.

But the Australian actually had a better finishing position than Norris across the races in which he was classified. 

Piastri's average finishing position in grands prix in 2025 was 2.7, with this score calculated from taking all of his classified finishing positions, and dividing it by the number of times he actually was classified, in this case, 22. 

For Norris, his average position, despite being equal on seven wins and ahead on second places by eight to five, comes in at 3.6. This is down to the races in Canada and the Netherlands, where he crashed into Piastri and suffered engine failure, respectively.

Although Norris did not cross the finish line in these races, as per F1 rules, as he had completed more than 90% of the race distance, he was officially classified with an 18th-place finish on both occasions. The pair of P18 finishes is therefore used to calculate Norris's average position of 3.6. 

For Piastri, his sole DNF in the season came on the first lap in Azerbaijan, meaning he was simply credited with a straightforward DNF, whilst both drivers are effectively written out of the Las Vegas GP following their double DSQ. 

Below, RacingNews365 has calculated the overall head-to-head scores for each pair of team-mates in grands prix in 2025, with the overall score, score when both cars were classified, and average positions presented.

Another table below contains the data for the Sprint races.

Verstappen's sole defeat

There was only one occasion throughout the 2025 season in which a Red Bull team-mate beat Max Verstappen. 

This came in the Miami Sprint, with Yuki Tsunoda officially claiming sixth after Verstappen received a time penalty for colliding with Kimi Antonelli in the pit-lane.

This dropped the Dutchman down to 17th from fourth on the road, costing him five points. 

Otherwise, as he was in qualifying, Verstappen was faultless against both Liam Lawson and Tsunoda. He did suffer a defeat of sorts to the Japanese racer in Austria, but as he was eliminated on the first lap by Antonelli, it means that when both Red Bull machines finished, it was only in the Miami Sprint Verstappen was classified behind,