Oscar Piastri, Lando Norris, and Helmut Marko (via IMAGO)

McLaren started emerging as one of the most dominant teams on the grid mid-way through the 2024 season. Although Woking has scored only two race wins so far, they have put forth impressive chassis performance. Additionally, the young lineup of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri makes McLaren a fierce force on the track. Hence, amidst the ongoing summer break, Helmut Marko has picked his favorite driver from Woking.

Lando Norris scored his maiden victory in Formula 1 in the ongoing campaign and has gained major points in the championship standings. The Briton is extremely close to Max Verstappen for the top spot. Regardless, this upturn in performance wasn’t enough to convince Dr Helmut Marko to put Norris above his Aussie counterpart Oscar Piastri.

Marko reckoned that Piastri was mentally ‘stronger’ at McLaren while teaming up with Norris. Additionally, the 81-year-old pointed out that the Aussie was quickly catching up to the Briton in the pecking order. Hence, the lack of mistakes from the 23-year-old convinced Marko to side with him.

It looks very much like Piastri is the mentally stronger one and is gradually catching up with Lando over the course of this season and is even better in some areas. I didn’t see any mistakes from him.

Helmut Marko said, as reported by Sky Deutschland

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Lando Norris has continued to score great performances despite the failure in strategies by the team during race weekends. Regardless, the 24-year-old doesn’t forgive himself easily for the mistakes he commits during races. Hence, the Belgian GP saw a tumultuous performance from the Briton which was partly his fault.
Lando Norris and Zak Brown (Via: Imago)
As a result, Zak Brown noted that there was a lot of pressure on Norris to catch up to Max Verstappen as he continued to stay self-critical of his performances in Formula 1.

If you want to catch up with Max, there’s obviously a lot of pressure, We know that Lando is quite self critical. He will be a bit grumpy about this mistake, but overall he makes few mistakes and has a lot of good moments.

Zak Brown told Sky Deutschland

McLaren will continue to implement upgrades to their package to continue to close the gap on Red Bull. Woking has a serious chance of overtaking Milton Keynes in the Constructors Championship towards the end of the 2024 season. Hence, all hopes are on the Austrian constructor to continue to close the window on their rivals down the season.