Calm under fire: Piastri backs his own “evidence” as title squeeze tightens
Oscar Piastri isn’t reaching for the panic button. Not yet. The McLaren driver has taken a few on the chin since the European leg wrapped, and the once-quietly dominant leader has suddenly found company. Lando Norris is alive to the scent, and Max Verstappen, well, he’s Verstappen — when the door opens, he tends to walk through it.
Over the last four races, Piastri has banked just 19 points while Norris has pulled 46 and Verstappen a hefty 83. That’s momentum with a capital M. But Piastri’s not in the mood for doomscrolling through the points table. He’s leaning on history — his own — as a reminder that the ground under a title fight can shift overnight.
“I’ve been in fights that were as close, or at this point, even closer than what they are now,” he said in Austin, sounding calm rather than combative. “So I’ve got the evidence for myself that things can still turn out well, and I still fully believe that I can win the championship.”
If you’ve followed Piastri’s climb, you know those receipts. In 2019 he outlasted Victor Martins to take the Formula Renault Eurocup by 7.5 points. In 2020, he edged Théo Pourchaire to the FIA F3 title by three. He’s been in the pocket of tense finales before; he wears pressure like a well-fitted glove.
None of that glosses over the obvious: he hasn’t been at ease with the car lately, and he knows it. The Australian was blunt about where the current bleed is coming from.
“I think in race trim, we’ve still looked pretty good, but in qualifying trim, it’s been a little bit tougher for us the last few weekends,” he said. “This weekend, for whatever reason, I’ve just not gelled with the car at all.”
That’s the red flag for McLaren. When the margins are this thin, Saturdays write your Sundays. Piastri’s floor is high — he’s still extracting respectable race pace — but if Verstappen is starting ahead and Norris is stringing together clean laps on Saturdays, you spend Sundays on defense. That’s no way to police a championship lead, however plucky your race craft.
What’s interesting is the language Piastri keeps coming back to. He’s not talking about “protecting” a cushion or “managing” a gap. He’s talking about speed. “Performance is what’s going to win you a championship,” he said. “The faster you go, the more points you’re going to score.”
It sounds simple because it is. Strip away the permutations and the late-season nerves: if McLaren gets him a connected front end and a car he trusts on the edge over one lap, the leaderboard takes care of itself. If it doesn’t, the other two will make him pay for every compromised out-lap and every scruffy sector.
Inside the McLaren garage, Tom Stallard’s calm hand on the radio will help. This is where the driver-engineer relationship matters — keep the debriefs blunt and the setup swings measured. McLaren’s operational sharpness has been one of its 2025 calling cards, with both cars consistently in the fight; the “ace card,” if there is one, is that two-car pressure they can place on Verstappen when the orange cars qualify up front together.
The nuance here is that Piastri’s dip hasn’t looked like a confidence crisis. It’s looked like a feel problem. That’s fixable. The danger is that Verstappen’s recent haul isn’t just numbers; it’s swagger. Once he smells a title run, he tends to grind out the ones and twos even on scrappy days. Norris, meanwhile, is driving with a looseness that comes only when you trust the rear to be there when you need it.
Piastri’s task is uncomplicated and brutally hard: find the Saturday snap he had earlier in the year. Don’t overthink the scoreboard, don’t feed the narrative, just get the lap in. Do that, and the bigger story reverts to him.
He knows it. “The only thing you can do is analyze it and see what we can do better,” he said. That’s not a soundbite, that’s his process. And it’s been a pretty good compass so far.
So, will Oscar Piastri win the 2025 world title? Ask again after he strings together a few clean qualifying sessions. Because if he does, this wobble becomes a footnote. If he doesn’t, the sharks alongside him aren’t the forgiving type.
