The Australian was completely outclassed by his championship rival throughout all practice and qualifying sessions at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City.
Piastri notably complained about an issue with his power unit and he was powerless to challenge his teammate in the race for pole position.
Norris produced a monster flying lap to snatch pole position, the first time McLaren has started from P1 in Mexico since 1990.
He was more than 0.25 seconds ahead of the rest of the field.
Fox Sports, available on Kayo Sports, is the only place to watch every practice, qualifying session and race in the 2025 FIA Formula One World Championship™ LIVE in 4K. New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.
Ferrari duo Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton finished second and third while Norris’ rivals Max Verstappen (P5) and Piastri (P8) struggled to find pace.
The only bonus for Piastri is that he will start from P7 because Carlos Sainz is serving a grid penalty.
It is a hammer blow to Piastri’s title hopes with the Aussie facing the probability that Norris will have the championship lead heading into the final races of the year.
Piastri was more than six tenths behind his teammate.
Even Norris couldn’t believe his time.
“Even I don’t know how I did that,” he said after being told the result on team radio.
Sky Sports F1 analyst Jamie Chadwick said: “That’s the most dominant we’ve seen Lando ever.
“All season against Oscar it’s been the two of them — but here he’s put a gap on the field but also his teammate.
“Championship-wise it couldn’t have been better.”
Norris, who is 14 points behind Piastri in the battle for the drivers’ crown, looked unstoppable and will be incredibly difficult to challenge if he is able to safely negotiate Turn 1 in Monday morning’s race.
Piastri will start from the fourth row.
The 24-year-old said he will have to do some “digging” to work out why he has been so much slower than his teammate.
“There’s just no pace which is a bit of a mystery,” he said.
“It’s been more or less the same gap all weekend, so we’ll have a look at where it was going wrong. Obviously it’s a bit frustrating.
“Not a huge amount has changed around how I’m feeling in the car. It’s just this weekend and last weekend it’s felt like the pace hasn’t come.
“I’m not 100 per cent sure why yet, so we’ll do some digging.”
There was a brutal moment of radio silence as Piastri was informed about his qualifying result by his race engineer.
“That is P8 I’m afraid. P8. Sainz does have a penalty so it’s P7,” Piastri did not respond.
When given final instructions on how to power down the car, Piastri hopped out of his MCL39 without saying anything.
“That silence speaks volumes,” Sky Sports F1 analyst Simon Lazenby said.
McLaren principal Andrea Stella divulged more information that he usually does when saying candidly that Piastri has been struggling on recent circuits where there has been tyre sliding.
Stella said Piastri is losing pace to his teammate at every corner.
Former world champion Jacques Villeneuve said it was surprising to see Piastri settle for slower laps rather than going for broke and risking mistakes.
“That was odd,” Villeneuve said on Sky Sports.
“When you are slower than your teammate by that amount, you try to push a little harder, you get in trouble, you lock wheels and you start to figure out issues here and there.
“But he seemed to be happy with how the car was feeling and that’s really strange.”
Mexico City GP qualifying result
1) Lando Norris, McLaren
2) Charles Leclerc, Ferrari
3) Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
4) George Russell, Mercedes
5) Max Verstappen, Red Bull
6) Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes
7) Carlos Sainz, Williams
8) Oscar Piastri, McLaren
9) Isack Hadjar, Racing Bulls
10) Oliver Bearman, Haas
More to come...
