Cool and calm are two words often used to describe Oscar Piastri, but Juan Pablo Montoya believes F1 could see a different side of the Aussie if Lando Norris puts in another performance like Austria.

After all, says the former F1 driver, “everyone cracks”.

Will Oscar Piastri ‘crack’ under pressure from Lando Norris?

Piastri went into the Austrian Grand Prix 22 points up on his McLaren team-mate having outscored the Briton in the previous two races, Spain and Canada.

It had Ralf Schumacher proclaiming that “with is now internally decided that Piastri is the man the team will focus on in terms of the World Championship”, while Martin Brundle warned Norris that he “won’t win a World Championship unless he can stop” his bad weekends.

Norris responded with a near-flawless weekend at the Red Bull Ring where he claimed his third win of the F1 2025 season. Having claimed pole position by half a second, Norris kept Piastri at bay despite the pressure of having the latter within DRS throughout the opening stint.

As the second round of pit stops played out, he was again under intense pressure from his team-mate but kept it clean on his way to a 2.2s victory. That saw him close the gap on Piastri to 15 points.

It was one of Norris’ best performances, whereas Piastri was left to apologise to McLaren for a near-miss with his team-mate, chastised by his race engineer Tom Stallard for a “too marginal” move.

It was the first wrong step that Piastri had made in the championship fight since his off-track excursions at a soaking wet Australian Grand Prix.

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???? The results of the F1 2025 championship

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But while even his apology was as calm as it gets, “sorry for the move in Turn Four, my bad”, Montoya is interested to see how he deals with the pressure if Norris is able to string together a few more performances like his Austrian showing.

“The question is, is Oscar this hard rock or is Oscar very quiet and very good at playing it cool, hiding it?” said the former McLaren driver.

“Everybody cracks, everybody has feelings, everybody suffers. So I feel that if Lando starts beating Oscar enough, we’re gonna see a different side of Oscar.

“You can’t be this cool and this calm about it and at the same time struggle. At the moment it’s easy. In the last couple years he was the underdog and it’s okay to struggle and he’s learning.

“But now when you’re in the championship and this guy’s coming and it’s gonna start coming at you every week, it’d be really cool to see if he can keep his cool demeanour.

“‘Yeah you’re kicking my ass but I’m good with it? Hell!’

“And you start bringing your A-game and your A-game is not enough, then we’ll see what everybody’s made of because we know Lando can crumble, but Lando can bounce really strong.

“The question is, if Lando holds this for a couple weeks, then we’re gonna see maybe a different Oscar.”

Looking ahead to this weekend’s British Grand Prix, Norris’ home race, Montoya reckons the 25-year-old will again lead home a McLaren 1-2.

“I think Lando is going to win. I think it’s going to be a one-two for McLaren,” he said.

“I think McLaren is going to be there. I think with the cooler temperatures Mercedes is going to be better. I think Red Bull is going to run pretty well with the cooler track as well as Ferrari.

“The thing is we know McLaren is going to be on top right there but I think between Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes is so close that you don’t know who’s going to be where.”

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