Montoya’s warning for Piastri lands hard after Baku bruiser
Oscar Piastri walked into Monza saying nothing would change. Two races later, it feels like everything has.
The McLaren driver had a 34-point cushion over Lando Norris after the Dutch Grand Prix, the product of a metronomic summer and his teammate’s Zandvoort DNF. Piastri insisted ahead of Italy he wouldn’t start calculating or backing off. “It’s still far too early to be settling for positions that aren’t first,” he said. “The approach is exactly the same… my approach to risk is pretty measured.”
Then came Monza, and then came Baku. And with them, the first wobble of his 2025 campaign.
At Monza, Piastri admitted his laps were “good but not spectacular.” He finished a thorny third after late team orders, but the headline was more straightforward: Norris had him covered. In Azerbaijan it got messy. Piastri clipped the wall in qualifying, clipped it again in the race, and jumped the start for good measure. The kind of weekend that stains a notebook.
Juan Pablo Montoya saw this coming, or at least says he did. Speaking around Monza, he cautioned that a comfortable lead can play tricks on even the steadiest driver. After Baku, he doubled down on F1TV: “Whether you like it or not, mentally, you are going to change your approach, because you’re going to start double‑guessing yourself,” he said. “One side is: ‘I’m not pushing enough because I don’t need to,’ and then you want to prove to yourself that you are pushing enough, and then you throw the car in the wall.”
It’s a tidy summary of the paradox championship leaders live with: push and you risk it; manage and you invite the chasers. And while it’s true McLaren didn’t have the class of the field at Monza or Baku — an upgraded Red Bull RB21 set the reference at both — Norris has maximized the same machinery and momentum has swung his way. That’s the detail that matters in a title fight measured in single-digit points swings and tiny bruises to confidence.
Piastri’s strength this season has been his clarity. He’s been precise, light on mistakes, and ruthless on Sundays when it counted. Baku cut across that image like static. The jump-start spoke to a mind trying to nail the marginal gain; the brushes with the wall hinted at a driver forcing a rhythm that wasn’t there. It happens. The question now is whether it lingers.
Montoya’s broader point isn’t really about Piastri’s talent — which is obvious — but about the psychology of leads. Even when a driver says nothing changes, something often does. You brake a touch earlier into Turn 1 because second will do. Then you see purple sectors elsewhere and think, okay, time to remind everyone (including yourself) who’s on top. That oscillation is where errors breed.
There’s also the timing. Everyone in the paddock knows a rules reset is looming and with it the risk that 2026 shuffles the deck. If you’re chasing a championship now, every lost weekend feels heavier. That doesn’t mean Piastri has suddenly gone fragile; it means his margin for indulgence has evaporated.
So what next? Singapore, on paper, should treat McLaren more kindly than Baku did. High downforce, slower-speed sequences, a chance to reset the braking references and rebuild the flow. If Piastri’s “measured” risk profile is intact, this is where it reappears. If Montoya’s right and the mindset has shifted, you’ll see it in the tenths left on the table in qualifying or the scruffy lap that compromises a run plan.
McLaren’s part is simple: keep the radio calm, keep the run plans clean, and don’t overreact to one rough weekend. The car doesn’t need reinventing, just executing. Piastri doesn’t need to “prove” anything, just to get back to the quiet, efficient brutality that built that 34-point lead in the first place.
Title fights aren’t won with grand gestures — they’re won by denying oxygen to doubt. Baku breathed a little life into Norris’s chase and gave Montoya a neat soundbite to pin to the board. Now it’s on Piastri to turn the volume down again.
