Speaking ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix, Piastri recognised the growing rivalry but said keeping the team strong for the long haul remains a priority.
“Clearly there’s competition and there’s a ‘want to beat each other on track’ [mentality] but we’ve said before, we don’t want just one opportunity to try and win a world championship each,” Piastri said.
“We want this to be the case for many years to come and the best way to protect that is by having a very strong team around both of us.”
The 23-year-old stressed that despite their intense rivalry, their careers and the team’s success go beyond just this one season.
“We’re aware that whatever happens in the championship this year, or how things go, is much bigger than just this season and potentially defines our whole career,” he said.
“We’re very aware of that fact, of course we still want to beat each other and win a world championship but we know that there’s a bigger picture as well.”
Piastri arrives in Canada off the back of his fifth win of the season in Spain and currently leads Norris by ten points in the drivers’ championship.
Norris, who claimed his second win of the season in Monaco during the recent European triple-header, admitted that while things have remained clean on track so far, it’s likely that tension will eventually boil over.
“We never said we’re going to avoid everything,” he said. “I think we’ve actually been quite open in saying at some point, something is probably going to happen.
“We just have to be ready for that. I think both Oscar and myself know that, we’re competitive, we want to beat each other but the main thing is we stay strong together as a team.
“But everything is in the open, everything is obvious, everything is known between us.
“We both want to win, we both want to beat each other, but at the end of the day there can only be one person and that will be whoever performs the best over the course of the year.”
Norris praised Piastri’s form in 2025 — which has seen the Australian finish on the podium at every race bar one — and noted that a driver’s third season often marks a turning point in their development.
“He’s in his third season of F1, I remember in my third season you just come into the year a little bit more confident and with a bit more knowledge and just a more complete driver,” Norris explained.
“That’s what he’s done and he’s performing well, he’s driving incredibly well and at a very high level and deserves everything he’s been doing at the minute. It’s a good fun rivalry between us.”
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