Alan Jones praises Oscar Piastri and criticizes Lando Norris as "mentally weak"

Has Alan Jones found his potential successor? The 1980 world champion has been waiting 45 years for an Australian driver to succeed him on the podium. Formula 1. And the lucky one, it could well be Oscar piastri. After five rounds, the driver McLaren is leading the world championship ahead of Lando Norris, with three wins already under his belt. The Melbourne native has had a thunderous start to the season with a rather disconcerting calm despite the adversity offered by his teammate and by Max Verstappen.

At 24, Oscar Piastri seems to have the maturity of a future champion, both on and off the track. And Alan Jones has not failed to notice this. Now 78 years old, the former driver with 116 Grand Prix wins (12 victories, one title) supports his compatriot in the title race, seeing him as a more than credible candidate for the world crown in 2025. The man who made his career at Williams in the 1980s, he believes that the Australian has all the qualities to win at the end of the season... which is not the case, according to him, of Lando Norris, whom he considers to be much weaker mentally.

Norris's mental problems, « nonsense » according to Jones

"[Piastri] is undoubtedly a future world champion, Alan Jones told Fox Sports Australia. He can do it this year. He's a very mentally strong young man. (…) The first person you have to beat is your teammate. At the end of the day, his teammate is fragile. He's very fast, there's no doubt about that, but mentally, I think he's a pretty weak person. He comes out with all this nonsense about having a mental problem, dwelling on the problems he's had rather than the positives. When [your opponents] start saying all that nonsense, you know you've got them.

These remarks are reminiscent of those of Helmut Marko at the end of 2024. Last October, the Austrian leader, special advisor to Red Bull, had stated that Lando Norris had "some mental weaknesses" in his duel against Max Verstappen, in an interview given to Motorsport magazineA suggestion that did not fail to make Zak Brown react, who had pinned Helmut Marko for his remarks "disparaging" against its pilot.

Since the start of the season, and despite a victory at the opening round in Australia, Lando Norris has struggled to find his feet with the MCL39 and has made small mistakes with serious consequences. In Jeddah, he had an accident in Q3 which forced him to start in 10th place when, at the same time, Oscar Piastri qualified on the front row before winning the Saudi Arabian GP the following day. The Briton has never hidden his difficulties, whether at the wheel of his single-seater ou on the mental levelThe Miami Grand Prix will be an opportunity for him to bounce back after a mixed start to the season.

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