Oscar Piastri: “Other factors” at play as McLaren star searches for lost rhythm
Oscar Piastri’s season hasn’t fallen off a cliff, but it has definitely wandered off the racing line. Five wins in eight earlier this year had the Australian in clean air at the top of the standings after Zandvoort. Now, with three weekends to run in 2025, he’s 24 points behind Lando Norris — and talking about an undercurrent he can’t quite pin down.
“There are other factors,” Piastri said when asked to explain the dip. He’s not waving away responsibility, more acknowledging a car-and-conditions puzzle that hasn’t been as plug-and-play as it was through the spring.
The 23-year-old’s Dutch GP win straight after the summer break should’ve set the tone for a run-in. Norris retired that day with an oil line issue and Piastri left Holland 34 points clear. He hasn’t stood on a podium since. Norris, by contrast, has reeled off the last two wins and looks the more at ease with the MCL39 as the calendar’s final chapter unfolds.
Brazil was the snapshot of where it’s been going wrong. Piastri ripped through the single hour of practice and felt untouchable — “I felt like I couldn’t go slow” — only for the rest of the weekend to unravel. A Sprint crash, a penalty while fighting for second in the grand prix, and a pace deficit to his teammate when it counted. The raw speed was there in flashes; the thread that ties a weekend together wasn’t.
He says the adjustment load lately has been heavy. Austin and Mexico demanded he “drive very, very differently,” chasing grip on tracks that refused to offer any. Interlagos wasn’t standard either. “The soft tyre was obviously behaving very strangely,” Piastri noted. “It was hardly better than the medium. The grip conditions were very bizarre; to not go any quicker from Q1 to Q3 is almost unheard of — especially with so much rain. Clearly, something has been a bit odd.”
What’s changed? Not the car in any wholesale way, he insists. McLaren did roll out a revised front suspension back in Canada, a tweak designed to alter the feel across the front axle. Norris has stuck with it; Piastri trialled the option but opted not to adopt it permanently, preferring what he knows. It’s not a straight-line “upgrade” so much as a preference call, and at the moment Norris’ preference appears to be paying dividends.
That decision alone doesn’t explain a seven-race swing. But it does speak to the broader theme: the MCL39’s operating window has moved around and Piastri has been chasing it with tools that worked brilliantly for most of the year. When those tools don’t translate, he’s felt the strain of having to redraw his driving inputs mid-weekend. “It’s one thing adapting to different conditions,” he said, “but when the way you’ve driven for the whole season has worked so well, it’s kind of difficult to go away from that.”
Inside McLaren, there’s no panic. The car’s baseline is strong, the points are still there for the taking, and Piastri’s ceiling is obvious. But the margins are thin enough at the front that a small misread on tyres, a set-up that drifts out of the sweet spot, or a split-second misjudgment in mixed conditions becomes a headline.
The Australian isn’t sulking about it. He’s leaning into the grind. “I’m trying to work on how I can adapt to that better and kind of add more tools to my arsenal,” he said. That’s the right instinct for a title fight that still has teeth. There are three race weekends to go — including a Sprint — and 83 points left on the table. The gap to Norris is not insurmountable, but he can’t afford any more half-steps.
What does he need? Cleaner Saturdays to control Sundays, commitment to a front-end direction that gives him confidence under braking, and, crucially, a weekend where the weirdness stays out of the tyre blankets. If the Piastri who bossed China and made the mid-season look routine shows up, this swings again. If the “other factors” keep tugging at his rhythm, Norris — the form driver right now — will slam the door.
Either way, it’s McLaren’s championship to decide in-house. And that’s a sentence you couldn’t safely write two years ago.
