The race is on for McLaren’s championship standings as Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris excel

After a faultless drive from Oscar Piastri in Japan, the real race is on within the McLaren four walls, with the Aussie putting the heat on teammate Lando Norris.

Australian Formula One star Oscar Piastri drove another faultless race to finish third behind Dutch master Max Verstappen at the Japanese Grand Prix to reach his highest ever position in the drivers’ world championship.

With overtaking virtually impossible on the twisting Suzuka circuit, the top six cars all finished exactly where they started the 53-lap race, with Verstappen winning comfortably in his Red Bull ahead of Piastri’s McLaren teammate Lando Norris then the fast-finishing Australian, who was celebrating his 24th birthday.

“I got close a few times and tried to then challenge but the track position around here is so important,” Piastri said.

“(Qualifying) was where we effectively won the race and we didn’t do a good enough job so I will take the podium.

“There are still a lot of positives to take out of this weekend and the pace was mega, next time I just need to make sure I’m in a better position to use it.”

The McLaren strategy for Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri was a hot topic throughout the race.

Three races into the new season, the 2025 championship is already shaping up as a three-way battle for the ages with each race won by a different driver.

Norris took the early honours by winning in Australia last month but Piastri took the checkered flag in China a fortnight ago.

And now Verstappen has shown that his Honda-powered car can match the flying McLarens as he cruised to his 64th career win and his fourth in succession in Japan, one of the most physically demanding tracks on the F1 calendar.

“Starting on pole that really made it possible to win this race,” Verstappen said.

“This place means a lot to me and it was in the back of mind in the last few laps to try and stay ahead because it would be a great story and a kind of final farewell with Honda here in Japan.”

Lando Norris, Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri celebrate on the podium after the Japanese Grand Prix. Picture: Clive Mason/Getty Images

Norris retained his lead in the championship standings but by the barest of margins.

He now has 62 points, just one clear of Verstappen, while Piastri leapfrogged Mercedes driver George Russell into third place, the highest he’s ever been in his rapidly improving F1 career, which is just entering its third year.

Strong favourites to retain the constructors’ championship, McLaren leads the team title with 111 points, 36 ahead of Mercedes, whose Italian teenager Kimi Antonelli finished sixth after briefly leading the race with the first five all pitted before him in an incident free race that provided virtually no highlight reels.

“It has been a very good weekend, obviously didn’t get the positions that we wanted,” Norris said.

“We’re fighting for a win every weekend. Both Red Bull and Max deserved it this weekend, they’ve been catching up, they’ve obviously been making improvements.”

With the first three races all won by the driver starting from pole position, what is crystal clear is that qualifying is already looming as the decisive factor in the marathon title race with 21 rounds to go.

Piastri was on provisional pole after breaking the track record during the final stage of qualifying but made a tiny error on his final qualifying lap to miss pole by the blink of an eye and was unable to recover.

Still, he drove a very mature race and bagged 15 valuable points after blowing second place when he slid off a slippery wet track at Albert Park when he was challenging Norris for the lead.

After carefully managing his tyres through the first half of the race, Piastri began to reel in his teammate in the closing stages, cutting the gap to less than half a second but not enough to attempt a pass on Norris despite telling his engineers he had enough speed to catch Verstappen.

It was a smooth sailing race in Japan.

“I had really strong pace and felt like if I had the track position I could go and get Max but that’s what happens when you qualify behind unfortunately,” Piastri said.

“I at least asked the question and that was a fair response, it was a good race and that’s how we want to go racing.”

Despite predictions McLaren would dominate the season, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said Verstappen had shown he was right in the mix for a fifth successive drivers’ championship.

“There’s no better tonic for motivation than winning. Verstappen is like Mr Motivator,” Horner said.

Australia’s Jack Doohan finished 15th in his Alpine after crashing heavily in practice.

The fourth round will take place in Bahrain next week.

Originally published as The race is on for McLaren’s championship standings as Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris excel