For much of the season so far Oscar Piastri has looked like McLaren’s strongest championship contender.
Oscar Piastri
| Best | Worst | |
|---|---|---|
| GP start | 1 (x4) | 4 |
| GP finish | 1 (x6) | 9 |
| Points | 284 | |
He and team mate Lando Norris have often been nip-and-tuck in terms of pace, both over a single flying lap and race distance. But Piastri has extracted the McLaren’s considerable potential more consistently, made fewer errors and demonstrated superior race craft.
There’s been little to separate them since the first round of the championship. Piastri was less than a tenth of a second off Norris’s pole position time at Melbourne and pursued his team mate for most of the race until both drivers went off when fresh rain hit. While Norris was able to regain the lead, Piastri lost a significant amount of time and came in ninth. Since then he’s only finished off the podium once.
Over the following races, Piastri’s defeat to Norris in the season-opener began to look increasingly like it had come against the run of play. He put in an assured performance in China, overtaking Max Verstappen in the sprint race and winning the grand prix from pole position while Norris initially struggled to contain George Russell’s Mercedes.
Having been quickest on his first run in Q3 at Suzuka, a small error left Piastri four-hundredths of a second off pole position in third, where he finished. But after that he took control of the championship fight with three consecutive victories.
He dominated proceedings from pole in Bahrain while Norris recovered from sixth to third. In Jeddah he beat pole-winner Verstappen to turn one and ensured he profited from his rival’s penalty for cutting the first corner to stay ahead; Norris finished off the podium from 10th on the grid.
After losing the Miami sprint race due to the timing of a Safety Car period, Piastri won the race from his lowest starting position of the season – fourth. He was aided by Verstappen forcing Norris off at the start, but he also dealt with the combative reigning champion far more effectively than his team mate when he had the chance to pass him.
The same could not be said in Imola, where Piastri needed only to defend his position at the first corner to put himself on course for a fifth win in seven rounds, yet inexplicably left the door open for a grateful Verstappen. An early pit stop ultimately cost him a further place to Norris, who then took more points off Piastri by winning in Monaco.
McLaren were comfortably quickest in Spain and Piastri won from pole, pursued by Norris. Their rivals were stronger in Canada and the two orange cars were fighting over fourth place, Piastri parrying his team mate’s attacks, when Norris took himself out of contention by crashing into his team mate. Piastri brought his car home and with that his championship lead reached a peak of 22 points.
As the summer break neared McLaren’s development programme yielded two notable changes: The MCL39s became even more competitive, filling the top two places in the last four rounds, and Norris found a new suspension configuration he prefers, which Piastri isn’t using. Since then the championship has become a straight fight between the two McLaren drivers and Piastri has found his team mate an increasingly effective rival.
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Piastri was the ‘two’ in McLaren’s Austrian one-two, where he came remarkably close to hitting his team mate while trying to force a pass on the lap before Norris pitted. He took the lead at Silverstone but lost to Norris after being penalised for slowing too suddenly at the end of a Safety Car period.
He reversed that loss at Spa, passing Norris on the first lap. But a chance to further extend his lead went begging at the Hungaroring as Piastri found himself locked into a two-stop strategy early on while Norris, seeking a way back into contention following a poor start, gambled on a one-stop strategy and triumphed.
Piastri therefore went into the summer break just nine points ahead of his team mate. That’s an inadequate return on what has been a much more convincing campaign so far: consistently fast and bereft of significant errors. But with Norris seemingly more at ease with the McLaren now, Piastri faces a tougher fight than seemed likely after the first half-dozen rounds.
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