Oscar Piastri responds to Jos Verstappen advice and ‘sabotage’ whispers

Oscar Piastri has responded to Jos Verstappen’s advice to stand up for himself within McLaren, and has firmly refuted any hint of sabotage to his title bid.

The Australian driver has fallen behind Lando Norris in the Drivers’ Championship with four race weekends to go, having fallen off the boil of strong performances he had throughout the first half of F1 2025.

Oscar Piastri reacts to Jos Verstappen’s advice

Having only missed the podium twice in the first 15 race weekends of the season, Piastri only has one podium to show from the last five race weekends, and has missed out on the rostrum at the most recent four rounds.

This has coincided with resurgent runs for McLaren teammate Lando Norris and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, meaning that heading into the final races, it’s Norris and Piastri at the top separated by a point, with Verstappen a further 35 points back.

The question of just what has happened to Piastri’s performances has been a prevalent one in recent weeks, with the Australian having shown no signs of pressure getting to him for most of the season.

But a disastrous weekend at Azerbaijan, in which Piastri crashed out on the opening lap, kicked off this run of subdued outings, prompting Verstappen’s father, Jos, to suggest the erstwhile championship leader needs to stand up for himself at McLaren, with the implication thus being that, at the very least, his struggles are not being prioritised.

“I find what’s happening at McLaren quite strange,” said Jos in an interview with De Telegraaf.

“Piastri hasn’t suddenly forgotten how to drive, has he?

“If I were him, or his manager, I would bang my fist on the table internally. Because now everyone is wondering whether he can handle the pressure. And that’s not good for your own name, Piastri’s in this case.”

Piastri was asked about Verstappen’s comments when he spoke to the media in Brazil on Thursday, and he said he feels his voice is heard within the team.

“We’re always very open with each other in terms of what we think, whether we think things have been fair, whether we think the right decisions have been made, and, from that side of things, we can stand up for ourselves and feel very comfortable doing that,” he said.

“That’s very much encouraged by the team to make our point for ourselves, individually.

“I think it’s obviously a difficult dynamic to manage when you’ve got the two cars in the same team fighting for a championship that only one car can win. There’s obviously naturally going to be difficulties with that.

“But I respect the team allowing us to both try and fight for the Drivers’ Championship.

“For myself, I want to go out there and try and win the championship, knowing that I did it on my own merit, and doing the things that I could do in my control.

“If you pick one driver, you have a 50 percent chance that you’re not going to be that driver. So we’re very much encouraged and welcome to stand up for ourselves already. So I don’t think anything needs to change.”

Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris head-to-head in F1 2025

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

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

Oscar Piastri firmly shuts down ‘sabotage’ theory

Piastri’s downturn has given way to fan speculation swirling, with unfounded theories that sabotage could be playing a part in why he has suddenly slumped away from the performance level he had up until recently.

Asked bluntly whether he believes his championship challenge has been sabotaged or compromised by his team, Piastri said, “No, it’s not the case.

“I think the last couple of weekends have been a little bit trickier, but we’ve got pretty clear answers on why that’s the case.

“There aren’t really too many mysteries about what’s kind of happened. I think there are questions on why some differences have cropped up in terms of how I need to drive and stuff like that.

“But everything is explainable. So there’s definitely not that going on.”

Given the lack of an obvious reason for Piastri’s drop-off in performance, with Baku very much an outlier at the time of his messy showing, the 24-year-old was asked whether there are any external factors perhaps distracting him from the task at hand; factors that may not be obvious in the context of F1.

“I think Baku was obviously a bad weekend, but for extremely different reasons,” he said.

“It was a messy weekend, from start to finish, with a lot of different factors.

“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.

“But, ultimately, the pace was pretty good; I was just trying a bit too hard.

“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 evidence as to why it’s not been there, but the question as to why some things 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.

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

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