MIAMI : Oscar Piastri has leapt to the defence of McLaren teammate Lando Norris after the Briton was accused of being “weak” by ex-Formula One world champion Alan Jones.
Jones lauded his fellow Australian as a future world champion after Piastri took the championship lead with his third grand prix victory of the season in Saudi Arabia two weekends ago.
But Piastri, who is 10 points clear of Norris going into this weekend’s Miami Grand Prix, said: “Everybody is different. For me, the most important thing is to try to do things in the style most natural to you.
“When you try to do things that aren’t your natural way of being a person that’s when things become confusing. It’s when things start to go wrong.
“Everyone handles that differently. Lando handles that quite differently to how I handle it. Probably a lot of the emotions across the grid that happen regardless of whether they’re in the public or not they’re probably pretty similar.
“I think that’s just kind of how we’re wired as people and as competitors. Obviously there’s different emotions and different ways of dealing with that. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way.
“It’s very individual to the person. I’m quite different probably at the other end of the spectrum. If that’s what you feel is the best way of venting or trying to reset yourself then go for it.”
Since winning the season opener in Australia, Norris has struggled with the handling of this year’s McLaren.
He crashed in qualifying in Jeddah denting his race hopes and has fallen behind Piastri in the championship as a result.
Jones, the 1980 champion, told Fox Sports this week that he thought Norris was mentally “quite a weak person.
“He’s coming out with all this nonsense that he’s got a bit of a mental thing, he’s dwelling on some of the problems he’s had rather than the positives. When they start talking all that nonsense, you know you’ve got them.”
(Editing by Pritha Sarkar)
