Earlier in the season, on the eve of the Japanese Grand Prix, Oscar Piastri somewhat torturously booted a question about the championship into the long grass.
At that point he was fourth in the standings, 10 points behind team-mate and championship leader Lando Norris, having lost ground thanks to a costly spin in the season opener then clawed it back by finishing second in the Chinese sprint and winning the grand prix.
“Of course I want to try and reverse that gap that we have,” he said, “but with 22 races to go it would be a pretty stressful year if you were worrying about that gap already.
“Yes, they can be won and lost at the start of the year, but they can also be won and lost at the end of the year. The first six races are just as important as the last six.
Oscar Piastri, McLaren
Photo by: Peter Fox / Getty Images
“I’ve had plenty of championships myself where you look at the gaps and where you’ve lost points and stuff like that – and you generally don’t really look at where in the year they came, you just look at the fact that you did have points that you lost through the season at some point.
“So I think those kinds of weekends where you maximise the performance, that is what it is all about.”
And this, since then, is what Piastri has done, executing more weekends clinically while Norris, seemingly imperious in the opening round, has stumbled over every obstacle he has had to traverse.
In Japan both McLaren drivers were caught out by Max Verstappen pulling a sizzling pole lap seemingly out of nowhere in the truculent RB21, then weren’t able to overtake in a race where track configuration and lack of tyre degradation rendered passing virtually impossible. There Norris was second, Piastri third, and that was the last time Oscar trailed his team-mate across the line through a fault of his own weekend execution.
In Bahrain Norris qualified seventh with a scruffy lap which moved him to remark “I feel like I’ve never driven an F1 car before”, then compromised what might otherwise have been an impressive recovery drive by incurring a penalty at the start. Piastri imperiously converted pole position into the race win on a day when Verstappen struggled with a troublesome car and malfunctioning pit equipment.
After the race Norris was asked what positives he took away from it, and his reply was to the point: “That it’s finished, mostly.”
Lando Norris, McLaren
Photo by: Kym Illman / Getty Images
The following weekend in Saudi Arabia, Norris again laboured in vain while trying to essay a clean Q3 lap. And, while Verstappen annexed pole again, ahead of Piastri, it was Oscar who made a slightly better getaway than the polesitter and reached the first corner in a strong enough position for Max to try to brazen it out, skittering over the run-off and incurring a penalty.
In Miami, again both McLarens were edged out in qualifying – for both the sprint and the Grand Prix. At the start of the sprint Piastri pounced on the polesitting Mercedes of Andrea Kimi Antonelli at Turn 1 and would have won, but for a quirk of Safety Car timing which enabled Norris to pit and emerge ahead.
Qualifying for the main event went less well and Piastri was left ruing a mistake on his Q3 lap which left him fourth, behind Antonelli again – as well as polesitter Verstappen and Norris. But as the field filtered through Turns 1 and 2 on race day Max contrived to edge Lando off the track, dropping him to sixth.
Piastri had already dispensed with Antonelli, then hunted down Max and eventually cracked his resolute defence. Verstappen could have spent all afternoon ‘parking the bus’ on the inside line but Piastri forced him into an error and grabbed the lead.
The recovering Norris had closed in on this battle but then made heavier weather of passing Verstappen. It was another four laps before he could make a clean overtake at Turn 11, having first gone off-track there while getting by the Red Bull and having to hand the position back.
By this point Piastri was almost 10 seconds up the road and consolidating what would become victory.
Oscar Piastri, McLaren
Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images
“Winning the races is what is exciting at the moment,” Piastri said ahead of this weekend’s contests.
“I think the championship lead is nice, but I think I said after Saudi, I’m much more proud and satisfied of the work and the reasons behind why I’m leading the championship than actually the fact that I am leading the championship.
“Especially given that Melbourne didn’t go very well from a points point of view, I think it went well as far as execution goes, but considering I started with a bit of a deficit and I’ve pulled it back, I think that’s kind of the part that I’m enjoying the most, is the reasons why we’re leading the championship.”
It’s clear that the MCL39 is a difficult car to escort to the limit at every corner on a performance-based lap. But it’s also more benign than any others on its tyres, particularly the rear axle, over a race stint – and the advantage it has over other cars is more pronounced in hot conditions.
Piastri is now 16 points ahead of Norris in the drivers’ championship. Narrow margins, but he is palpably the happier of the two McLaren drivers at the moment.
And as he himself pointed out, as the margins in championships ebb and flow, it’s all about maximising what’s on the table at each round.
