Oscar Piastri’s Saturday in Austin had all the chaos and none of the reward. The McLaren driver was pitched onto two wheels in the Sprint melee at Turn 1, clattered into teammate Lando Norris, and both papaya cars were out before the field had even settled into line. Max Verstappen swept up the Sprint win and eight more points for his title chase. And when the dust lifted, qualifying brought another sting: Verstappen on pole for the Grand Prix, Norris alongside, and Piastri staring at the back of row three in P6.
It’s not where the championship leader wants to be on a weekend that’s been running against him. Still, Piastri was quick to brush off any suggestion that the post-Sprint rebuild had compromised his pace. The MCL39 was, he said, “back in one piece” and set up as intended. The problem wasn’t bent bits or a half‑baked balance — it was something more familiar, and more irritating.
Across a few weekends this season, a particular trait in the McLaren has occasionally returned like a bad habit. In Austin, it reared its head again. Piastri explained he never really felt on top of the car, not because he was overdriving it, but because the window of confidence never opened. In his words, it “just hasn’t clicked” so far — the kind of weekend where you chase the feeling and it keeps moving.
That’s fuel for an easy narrative: momentum swinging to Norris. The Briton has looked razor sharp since the summer, and here he stuck the car on the front row. But Piastri pushed back on the bigger-picture storyline. He was adamant Singapore wasn’t the momentum shift some are painting it as — a strong weekend undone by the result — and he doesn’t see the last handful of races as a slide. Austin, he insists, is more of an outlier than a trend.
Even so, Sunday now demands one of those disciplined, grown-up recovery drives he’s made a hallmark. Sixth at COTA isn’t the end of the world, but it’s a world away from the clear air he’d prefer when Verstappen starts in clean air and Norris is primed to harry the Red Bull into Turn 1. Piastri’s plan from P6 sounded pragmatic: take what’s there, weigh the risks, don’t force it. That measured edge has underpinned his title tilt; he won’t abandon it now.
There’s also the team dynamic. McLaren’s Saturday ended with both cars parked and a lot of orange carbon to count, so a clean opening lap on Sunday is non‑negotiable. From there, the race should open up: COTA tends to punish impatience and reward rhythm. Tyre life can swing wildly with wind and track temp. The undercut has teeth if you time it right. Safety cars can shuffle the deck at exactly the wrong — or right — moment. And if you can keep your tyres alive through the esses and into the long back straight, you’ve nearly always got a move to make into Turn 12.
What Piastri needs, more than anything, is a first stint that buys him options. If he can clear the cars ahead early, he’ll be in the conversation with the front three on strategy rather than stuck reacting to their pit windows. If he can’t, it becomes a race of containment — bank solid points, limit the damage from Verstappen’s pole and Norris’s tow, and live to fight on friendlier ground.
The stakes are obvious. Verstappen shaving eight points in the Sprint and starting ahead again on Sunday shifts the pressure back onto the McLaren camp. Norris, meanwhile, has been relentless in qualifying form and will fancy a shot at the lead into the uphill launch. Piastri’s job, from row three, is to stop this weekend from becoming a swing.
None of this is panic-button stuff. Championship runs are built on days like this, where you don’t have the car exactly where you want it and you still find a way. Piastri has done that often enough in 2025 to lead the thing. He’ll need another tidy, unspectacularly excellent Sunday now — the kind Verstappen’s made a career out of. If the “kind of behaviour” in the MCL39 stays quiet, there’s a path. If it pipes up again, he’ll be defending more than attacking.
Either way, the first 15 seconds will tell us plenty. Austin’s Turn 1 giveth and taketh. After Saturday, you suspect Piastri’s only interested in one of those.
