Baku bites: Chadwick says bruising weekend must jolt Piastri back into title mode
Oscar Piastri’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix was the kind of off-key weekend that can haunt a title campaign. Three errors, little rhythm, and a McLaren in the wall — not the soundtrack of a championship leader in September.
Sky Sports pundit Jamie Chadwick didn’t sugarcoat it. For her, Baku should be the alarm clock. McLaren need a reset; Piastri needs a reboot.
“You could see it snowball,” she said on air. “That’s not the Oscar we’ve watched all year. He needs a clean weekend and a reset to close this title out.” The gist was crystal clear: three proper mistakes in one round from a driver who’s been ice-cold for most of the season is the kind of form you stamp out fast.
The grim roll call started with a lack of pace relative to Lando Norris and, frankly, the front of the field. Piastri was a step behind from Friday and never quite reeled it back in. He did reach Q3, only for a heavy kiss of the barrier to trigger red flags and leave him stranded in ninth on the grid. Come Sunday, things unraveled at the lights: a jump start, an anti-stall, the pack swarming past — and not much later, another meeting with the wall that ended it all. Street circuits are unforgiving; Baku hands out bills immediately.
If there was a sliver of consolation, it’s that Norris couldn’t turn the screw either. Seventh won’t sting Piastri as badly as a podium would have. But the bigger headache sits in the rearview mirror: Max Verstappen pouncing on McLaren’s stumbles and muscling his way back into the title conversation. You don’t need a points table to know that letting the No. 1 taste momentum this late in the year is exactly what rivals try to avoid.
Chadwick’s broader point wasn’t just about one rough Sunday, though. She sees an outfit that’s crept into a funk over the last couple of races and a driver who’s dipped relative to his teammate since Monza. The message to McLaren: strip it back and figure out where the MCL39’s performance has gone missing. The message to Piastri: find the Norris benchmark again and fast.
None of this erases what’s put Piastri in the title fight. The Australian’s 2025 has been built on composure and repeatable execution. Even the scrappy moments — the off at his home race to start the year springs to mind — have usually been swallowed and filed away without drama. It’s why Baku stood out. He looked reactive, not proactive. A beat behind the car, and then behind the weekend.
The good news for McLaren is that problems this obvious tend to be fixable. The bad news is the calendar won’t wait while they search for answers. Confidence in a street circuit braking zone can vanish in a heartbeat; it can take a session or two to get back. But the very best do it by Friday of the next round.
This is where championship campaigns often harden. The margins get tighter, the cars converge, and the title narrative stops being written on speed alone. It’s about who can bank points on a scrappy day and, crucially, who can slam the door on a slump before it finds friends. Piastri’s job now is to turn one messy weekend into just that — one.
McLaren, for their part, will bristle at the idea of letting this slip away after the step they’ve made this year. They’ve carried themselves like a team ready to go toe-to-toe all the way to Abu Dhabi; the next race has to look like it. Clean practices, no hero runs too early, qualifying without drama, calm at the start. Simple things that win titles when the pressure climbs.
Chadwick’s verdict might sting, but it reads like the right medicine. Baku can be a blip or a hinge point. Piastri’s shown enough in 2025 to suggest he’ll choose the former. The paddock will be watching the out-lap of FP1 next time out to find out.
