Outside Line: Coin toss for who will be 2025 F1 World Champion

It could be Norris, it could be Piastri. Thankfully, we’re not seeing the kind of solo dominance Max Verstappen had in 2023 with Red Bull, although one could argue that the McLaren boys have a piece of kit in the MCL39 that is arguably as dominant as the RB19 of that year.

The difference is that Sergio Perez, in the other Red Bull, was not close to Verstappen. The Dutch ace outscored the Mexican veteran 575 to 285. The pair ended one-two in the 2023 Drivers' standings. A very different story from the current title battles between McLaren teammates.

Right now, heading to the Dutch Grand Prix, Round 15 of 26 at Zandvoort, Piastri has one more victory than Norris, and with 10 rounds to go, this World Championship feels like a game of chess: your move, my move.

Ultimately, I believe the driver with the most wins at the end will be the World Champion. And it will go all the way down to the final night of the Championship in Abu Dhabi.

The big question is whether their battle will explode. Juan Pablo Montoya thinks it will, but I’m not so sure. People are quick to compare it to Prost-Senna, Rosberg-Hamilton, or Hamilton-Alonso, but this is different. Each of those legendary rivalries was unique.

This is a new generation: two young drivers in their early 20s, with Piastri (24) and Norris (25) vying for the right to be called Formula 1 World Champion. We don’t need to frame it through history. This is the new battle for the sports trove of legends.

If it stays clean, fantastic. But history suggests F1 teammate title battles rarely do. That’s the beauty of the final stretch of the season ahead. Forget Prost-Senna or Hamilton-Alonso; this is Norris-Piastri time, and they have a blank canvas to paint their own masterpiece for the ages.

In Canada, they were lucky that only Norris DNFed when they collided. If he’d taken Piastri out too, it would have been another story altogether. In Hungary, the Aussie nearly outbraked himself into the back of the Briton's McLaren as they fought for the same space at Hungaroring, during their duel for the lead.

If and when Lando and Oscar do collide, it will echo the 2016 title fight when Mercedes duo Hamilton and Rosberg took each other out in Barcelona. The Mercedes pair collided, handing victory to Verstappen that day.

No matter how positive I want to be about the remainder of this campaign, the odds say Norris and Piastri will clash. Many pundits predict it. But I’d rather just sit back and watch, Savour, Enjoy. Today, it’s refreshing to see two young drivers with a different, less nasty but equally determined approach to racing and what it means to join the greats as a WDC. Do rivals have to hate each other? Who knows?

Formula 1 rivalries, like most in sport, are a love-hate relationship. Even Senna and Prost, bitter enemies on the track for most of their time in F1 together. But then grew close once the Frenchman retired. The Brazilian would call him regularly until the day he died. I guess, unless you’ve got Racing in Your Blood, it’s hard to understand.

That’s why I find this Norris-Piastri battle beautiful as a sporting episode. The stage is set for a ten-race stretch, each Grand Prix weekend a 'cup final' and the purest title fights (for now!) between teammates that I can remember witnessing in five decades of my Formula 1 religion.

Who will be the 2025 F1 Champion? During the 2 Soft Compounds Podcast, previewing the Dutch Grand Prix, Rick Houghton tossed a coin to get to that answer he called heads: He got: Norris. For my toss, I called tails, I got: Piastri! Yep. That's how close it is to call with ten to go.