Oscar Piastri mistakenly reposts Bernie Ecclestone's quote claiming McLaren favoritism for Lando Norris and then deletes it

Oscar Piastri, by mistake, reposted an Instagram post that claimed McLaren was favouring Lando Norris in the 2025 championship battle, but soon deleted it. The quotes in the post were by F1 Supremo Bernie Ecclestone (who founded the Formula 1 group in 1987).

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri have been going at it from the very start of the 2025 F1 season. McLaren has had superior machinery in comparison to the competition for the majority of the year, and this has allowed Norris and Piastri to have a good old scrap right at the top.

The ongoing campaign is 21 rounds down, and Lando Norris is currently leading the drivers' championship with 390 points. Oscar Piastri, on his end, is in second place, having amassed 366. Amid their high-intensity battle, there have been suggestions made about McLaren favouring Norris.

In line with this, Bernie Ecclestone recently added:

"McLaren prefers the English driver Norris. He has more star quality and marketing appeal for them, has more camera presence and publicity, that's probably why he is better for McLaren." (Via: Sport.de).

Interestingly, this was recently reposted by Oscar Piastri via Instagram, but he soon after, deleted it.

Oscar Piastri reshared a favouritism post but deleted it.

McLaren CEO Zak Brown and team principal Andrea Stella have, on multiple occasions, made it known that there is no favouritism toward any driver from their end in the duo's fight. Only three rounds are remaining in the ongoing campaign.

"Difficult to know exactly where we sit": Oscar Piastri on Friday's running at Las Vegas GP

Formula 1 Grand Prix of Las Vegas 2025 - Second Practice Session Classification - Source: Getty

Oscar Piastri had a mixed outing during Friday's running at the ongoing Las Vegas Grand Prix race weekend. He ended Free Practice 1 in P8 in comparison to Norris' P6, and then ended up way down in P14 in Free Practice 2 (start-stop session because of red flags) when his teammate secured P1 with a time of 1:33.602.

Following the end of his outing in the MCL39, Piastri took the time to share his thoughts, and via an interaction with Formula 1, he added:

"I think FP1 was pretty good. Some things to work on, but overall I felt like it was a pretty good session. FP2, I did two laps for the whole session. Difficult to know exactly where we sit. I think clearly the car’s got decent pace, but not that many people got a great run on the softs. A little bit difficult to know exactly where we sit, but still plenty of positives I think, plenty of things to look through overnight."

Piastri has to make the Las Vegas Grand Prix race weekend count to close down the 24-point gap in the drivers' standings. Saturday's qualifying session will be key.

Edited by Rishabh Negi