Oscar Piastri admits burning question may remain unanswered despite McLaren ‘evidence’

Oscar Piastri claims that McLaren has found some “evidence” to explain why his pace went missing in Austin and Mexico, despite feeling satisfied at the wheel, as he bids to rescue his F1 2025 title challenge.

However, Piastri admits that McLaren may never find out why, in general, some things have been clicking, and others not in a damaging recent run of form for the Australian driver’s championship chances.

Oscar Piastri and McLaren in the dark over inconsistencies

As part two of the F1 2025 campaign got up and running, Piastri emerged as the favourite to win the title. His Dutch Grand Prix victory – while teammate Lando Norris scored zero following a DNF – put Piastri 34 points clear out front, though the tables have since turned.

A Las Vegas, Qatar and Abu Dhabi triple-header awaits to see F1 2025 to its conclusion, and Piastri goes into that critical final run of races now trailing Norris by 24 points. Piastri has gone five grands prix without a podium finish, while Norris has won two grands prix and a Sprint in that time.

Speaking with the media ahead of the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, Piastri broke down that underwhelming run. Baku, he considers an outlier where everything went wrong, having crashed out of qualifying and the race.

But, as for the US and Mexican GPs, both races where Piastri finished fifth – he says that McLaren has gathered “some kind of evidence” for why he was comfortably slower than Norris, yet did not necessarily feel it in the MCL39.

However, as for why things in general suddenly no longer always click at the McLaren wheel… that Piastri fears, may forever remain a mystery.

“Baku was obviously a bad weekend, but for extremely different reasons. It was a messy weekend from start to finish with a lot of different factors,” Piastri began.

“It was a strange weekend, just in terms of tyre usage as well, doing all the practice sessions on C6 tyres, and we had a couple of issues on both cars. So it was just a messy weekend from start to finish, but ultimately, the pace was pretty good. I was just trying a bit too hard in the end.

“Austin and Mexico have been quite different in that I actually feel like I executed reasonably well, but the lap time has just been not there, and I think we’ve got some kind of evidence as to why it’s not been there.

“But the question as to why some things have not been working the last couple of weekends, and why some things have been, that part, I’m not sure we’ll ever know the answer to.

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“But I think knowing that there’s a difference is the biggest thing.

“So, Baku you could argue, yes, there was some other things that maybe crept in. But I think in Mexico and Austin, it’s just been about lacking performance and trying to find out where to find it.”

Piastri has three grands prix and a Sprint remaining to snatch the title from Norris.

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