The FIA brought out the big guns for the final Thursday press conference of 2025 with Formula 1 title protagonists Lando Norris, Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri brought together for a media grilling - sat next to the championship trophy they will fight for on Sunday.
None could be said to look thrilled to be there. But a ‘get in, get it over with, get out’ philosophy is fairly common among drivers for such media commitments, let alone those with the most serious of jobs to do this weekend.
Were it a boxing match, this would be the moment they trade insults, get in each other’s faces, and say whatever needs to be said to make sure people pay the most attention. It doesn’t work that way in F1, where these press conferences are often quite sterile.
But this may still be considered the prelude to the final battle – one that Verstappen looks completely at ease going into. He has been here before, and it shows.
Forget his four titles and just focus on the first: Verstappen has lived the reality of F1’s most tense and bitter title showdown in history. He was nervous before the start, which is completely out of character, and it took so much out of him that his leg cramped up on the final lap of the 2021 race.
Now, everything Verstappen says is the verbal equivalent of a giant shrug – he did not expect to still be in title contention (he even joked that he has no family here because he did not think the weekend would be important), he cannot guarantee the outcome will be in his favour on Sunday, so he is just here for the ride and will take what comes.
Of course he cares. But if you think this might be weighing on him at all, think again. He is riding the crest of a wave with back-to-back wins, even though they have both been inherited, because he and Red Bull are doing the job when it counts and generally speaking he has really enjoyed the last 10 races or so, with his team much more competitive than before the summer break.
For the other two drivers, it is a little different. They have not had the chance to win a world championship before and they may not again after this. It could be now or never and very, very few people could possibly know what that feels like to process and deal with.
Perhaps that is why Piastri looked the more naturally at ease of the two. He has the least to lose of all protagonists after McLaren botched his Qatar win and knocked him behind even Verstappen in the points, after all.
Piastri sounds like he has genuinely come to terms with his outsider status and the wider situation of fading from a commanding points lead. He does not seem to be holding any grudges for how or why that has happened, or in some kind of doom spiral about how to deal with it – instead Piastri was quite naturally cracking the most jokes, and diffused any potential tension around an inevitable question around team orders with a massive grin even though the question was initially being directed to Norris.
It is to Piastri’s credit that he shows no signs of any bitterness, and that he also held his hands up to having plenty of moments on his side where the missing points could come from by the end of the season. It’s happened, it’s disappointing, and in the wake of the season he may come to reflect on so many opportunities he or McLaren could have done a better job and won what he’d have needed to be champion.
But he still has a chance. He was brilliant last weekend in Qatar, should have won, and knows that all he can try to do is the same again here. So it would be unfair to say that Piastri’s positivity was the result of being resigned to his fate.
But what about Norris? Half of the time he was hard to read, half the time he was quite breezy. There were the usual mantras about treating this like any other race, and not thinking about it until the media brings it up, and he was not easygoing as the other two – although that’s not necessarily out of character of late.
Norris has been butchered in some quarters for his honesty and openness at times, and faced the same cycle of questions all season long. Unsurprisingly, there is a hint of Norris getting genuinely tired of ‘the media’ as a result.
That probably comes across the most in bigger settings like this press conference.
As ‘the media’ comprises broadcasters, pundits, podcasters, video creators, website writers, print journalists – all from a mix of national newspapers, specialist motorsport outlets, lifestyle publications and more. And that’s the only environment in which everybody’s crammed together.
Having dealt with Norris on a one-to-one basis, in small groups and in grander ‘arenas’ like that absolutely packed press conference room, it is definitely not the case that he has a problem with all media. More likely he is just a little weary of a certain type of scrutiny or treatment in a certain forum.
You can tell by how he perked up quickly when asked a certain question or giving a certain answer that he is not just shutting down entirely because he’s fed up. But ultimately he has a job to do, and these mandatory media engagements are a distraction from it.
Plus, Norris and Piastri are figuring out how to best handle all this in real time. Whereas Verstappen’s so at ease he has even spent some of his time between Qatar and this pivotal title decider plotting his GT3 team’s plans for 2026.
