Oscar Piastri’s title tilt has hit turbulence at precisely the wrong moment, and Martin Brundle thinks he knows why. Five reasons, in fact — with a sixth offered by Piastri himself.
After Brazil, the McLaren camp feels split-screen. On one side, Lando Norris delivered his cleanest, most dominant weekend of the year, sweeping the Sprint and converting pole into a grand prix win. On the other, Piastri’s rough patch extended to five consecutive races without a podium, the Australian tagged for causing a collision on Sunday and salvaging only fifth. With three race weekends to go, he trails Norris by 24 points, with 83 still on the table.
That gap looked unthinkable a few weeks back. Piastri came out of the summer break like a flamethrower: victory at Zandvoort, 13 podiums in the first 15 races, seven of them wins, then another rostrum at Monza. The direction of travel since? Sideways into the barriers too often. There were crashes in the Azerbaijan, Austin and Brazil Sprints, and a messy Baku weekend featuring what Brundle called a “jump start horror story.” It’s been a sequence, not a blip.
Brundle’s diagnosis, delivered in his Sky Sports F1 column, reads like a checklist of championship landmines:
– Headspace: pressure creeping in after a dreamy run.
– Luck: the dice “simply won’t roll” his way.
– Setup: the MCL’s window hasn’t fallen to his liking lately.
– Tracks: a cluster of circuits that don’t quite suit.
– Norris: a teammate in overdrive, brimming with confidence.
“Probably a little of each,” Brundle wrote, noting Norris’s speed edge in Monza and how the season has since flipped.
Piastri, for his part, adds a sixth factor — and it cuts a little closer to home. On the Beyond the Grid podcast, he pointed back to McLaren’s Monza team orders, where he was told to hand second place back to Norris after a slow pit stop dropped the Briton behind. Piastri complied, finished third, and bit his tongue in public. But he admits the whole episode bled into the nightmare that followed in Baku.
“Ultimately a combination of quite a few things,” he said, citing a compromised FP1 with engine issues, the unfamiliar C6 tyre, and his own errors. He even called it “the worst weekend I’ve ever had in racing” — and, with the candor that makes him such a compelling figure, “probably the most useful in some ways.”
That sort of framing matters now. Because while Norris has re-seized momentum, the math still leaves room for mischief. If Norris simply finishes second in the remaining three grands prix, he’ll lock this up regardless of what Piastri does. But one Norris DNF paired with a Piastri win flips the standings on their head by a single point. You don’t need a conspiracy theory board to sketch the rest: a strong Sprint, a clean Saturday, a Sunday where the car sits in its window — and we’re all canceling plans for Abu Dhabi.
McLaren boss Andrea Stella isn’t panicking, either. The upcoming circuits, he says, shouldn’t pose any track-layout headaches for Piastri. And that’s the quiet crux of this thing. Through the mid-season heat, Piastri wasn’t just quick; he was economical. Minimal mistakes. Sharp Saturdays. Cold-blooded on Sundays. If the last five events have been the wobble, that previous 15-race sample is the proof he can correct it.
There’s a human layer here, too. Monza’s call will linger until the season ends, because that’s how this sport works — especially when the stakes are a first world title and the driver across the garage is both lightning fast and scrupulously consistent. But Piastri’s refusal to make it somebody else’s fault, even when he could, tells you the fight’s still on internally.
The take-away? Brundle’s list rings true because it captures the messiness of a title run. Drivers don’t just “lose form” in isolation. It’s the compound interest of tiny missteps, a bit of misfortune, a few iffy set-up calls, some track traits you don’t love, and the cold stare of a teammate who won’t blink. Piastri’s job now is to break that chain.
Do that, and this swing can swing again. We’ve had a season of seesaws: Norris early, Piastri emphatically post-break, Norris roaring back since. Three weekends is plenty for one more plot twist.
And if you’re searching for a litmus test, it’s simple. Watch Saturday. If Piastri nails the Sprint and plants the McLaren where it belongs on the grid, Sunday’s scenario tree starts to look very interesting. If not, Norris has a clear road to the big one. Either way, buckle up — the decisive laps of 2025 are still to come.
