‘Headscratching’ over as Oscar Piastri targets late-season title bid revival

Oscar Piastri says he’s got a better idea of where things have gone wrong for him in recent races, as he has a clear target for the remainder of the season.

The Australian’s title chances have stumbled across the last handful of Grands Prix, but Piastri is keeping things simple for the last three weekends of the year.

Oscar Piastri: I had to do some headscratching

Having looked a comfortable favourite to secure his maiden title at the end of the European leg of the season after opening up a 30+ point lead over McLaren teammate Lando Norris, the last few races have proven hugely damaging to Piastri’s championship bid.

A nightmare weekend in which he crashed out on the first lap of the race has been followed by a string of mid-top-10 results; these have coincided with four consecutive races in which Norris has finished on the podium, including two consecutive Grands Prix wins.

It means that, with three weekends to go, Piastri is attempting to win the title from a 24-point deficit, against a teammate on a rich vein of form, all while having to worry about the pace of a much more competitive Max Verstappen in his Red Bull, as well as the Mercedes and Ferrari drivers as McLaren’s dominance isn’t quite as clearcut as earlier in the year.

But one crumb of comfort Piastri is taking is that the reasons for his faltering results are explainable, such as being given a penalty for his overtaking move on Kimi Antonelli and Charles Leclerc in Brazil that took away a likely P2 finish.

The pace, Piastri insists, is back, having been bizarrely subdued across the United States and Mexican rounds.

“Yes, largely, I think Austin and Mexico were quite different to the other races that have not gone so successfully,” Piastri told the media in Las Vegas.

“I think, there, there was a clear pace deficit and something pretty fundamental that just wasn’t working.

“I think the other races have just been a combination of different things going wrong. Obviously, Baku was what it was.

“Singapore, from a performance standpoint, actually, was pretty solid. Just the race obviously didn’t pan out exactly how I wanted.

“Even in Brazil, the pace was good at points. I think the Sprint crash didn’t have a great impact on the rest of the weekend either.

“There were some things resulting from that that were suboptimal for the rest of the weekend. So I think, from a pace and performance point of view, I think Brazil was actually quite good.

“It was just that there were a lot of things that happened that meant the results weren’t on the table. So, for me, yes, there’s been a string of races that have not gone very well, but I don’t think they’ve been along the same lines.

“I think Austin and Mexico were, but the other races… the performance has been there, but there’s been something going wrong, whether it be a mistake or a crash or something else going wrong, a penalty.

“There have been things that have harmed the results. So I don’t really look at it as a kind of it’s all been going wrong for the same reason.

“There were a couple of races where, yes, I needed to do some head scratching and work out what was going on.

“But the other races that have been tough have just been what some might say is the difficult world of motorsport.”

Lando Norris vs Oscar Piastri: McLaren head-to-head scores for F1 2025

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

With Piastri seemingly more confident in his ability to return to the form he had in the first half of the season, and perhaps return to winning ways, he was asked whether winning all three of the final races would be the best possible way to issue a retort to his slump and give him the best possible chance of a maiden title.

“It would certainly help,” he said.

“But I think, for me, the best thing I can do and what I try and do every weekend is just get the most performance out of myself and the car.

“If I can do that, then I can put myself in the best position to try and win the race, and that’ll help me with the championship.

“So that’s kind of all I’m focused on at the moment. All I have been focused on, really. And, yeah, that’s not going to change.

“Obviously, it’s going to be difficult now to try and win, but the mentality of trying to get each week and getting the most out of it is still exactly the same.”

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