Oscar Piastri reveals ‘the worst result’ in ‘double-edged sword’ title fight

Oscar Piastri admitted his first Formula 1 title fight was a “double-edged sword”, and that taking second place was sometimes the “worst place I could finish.”

The Australian led the championship by 34 points at the two-thirds stage of the season, but finished the year 13 points off Lando Norris’ tally.

Oscar Piastri explains pressures of McLaren title battle

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Piastri had held a cushion at the top of the standings after converting pole to victory at the Dutch Grand Prix, before a retirement in Baku was compounded by four consecutive races away from the podium, and a disqualification in Las Vegas, which also befell Norris.

This combined with a resurgence from Max Verstappen, who made it a three-way battle for the title heading into the finale in Abu Dhabi, with Norris securing the podium finish he needed to come out on top.

Piastri, whose seven race wins last season were complemented with nine further podiums, admitted that because McLaren had the best package for most of the season, P2 was one of the worst places to be as, more often than not, it was Norris ahead of him at that time.

On top of that, when he was on top, the “double-edged sword” of a title fight came into the equation, by not wanting to look too far ahead of himself.

“It’s a double-edged sword,” he said of fighting for the title on the High Performance podcast.

“I would say there’s obviously the confidence you get from that, and just the enjoyment. At the end of the day, we’re all here on the grid because we’re trying to win races and eventually championships. So there’s a lot of enjoyment that comes with that.

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“I guess there’s also the expectation, or the building expectation of trying to keep that going. At certain points last year, finishing second was almost kind of the worst place I could finish, because I got beaten by my teammate, probably, and our car was a lot better than everyone else’s on certain weekends, and I didn’t do a good enough job, basically.

“So, when finishing second feels like a bad weekend, it’s tough and important to kind of look at it in a more holistic way and go, ‘okay, yeah, it wasn’t a good weekend’ or whatever in the grand scheme of things, but I still just finished second in an F1 race, thinking I probably didn’t do as good of a job as I should have or I could have.

“So, yeah, it’s a double-edged sword, and you’ve got to be careful to not get carried away either.

“I don’t think there was ever really the thoughts of, ‘I’m going to win the world championship’, or if there was, if there were, I was very quick to go, ‘calm yourself down, because there’s a long way to go.’

“After Melbourne, I knew within myself that it was within my power to win the world championship. I wasn’t certain it was going to happen, but I knew that if, and it’s a big ‘if’, if you did a good enough job, and if certain things go the right way, then it can happen.”

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