Oscar Piastri led the Formula 1 world drivers’ championship for six months, occupying the number one spot with victory in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in April.
But his campaign has begun to sputter in recent races, prompting all manner of speculation – that he can’t handle the pressure, that there is something wrong with his car, or that he is being deliberately held back by a McLaren team which is favouring its other driver.
Unlikely as most of the theories are, the fact remains that not only has Lando Norris now moved into the lead of the championship, Max Verstappen has clawed his way back from a 104-point deficit to 36. Now, Verstappen’s father Jos is taking his turn to apply heat to Piastri, via his regular media outlet, the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf.
“I find it quite strange what’s happening at McLaren,” Verstappen told the paper. “Piastri can’t have suddenly forgotten how to drive, right? If I were him, or his manager [Mark Webber], I’d bang my fist on the table internally at least once.
“Because right now everyone is wondering whether he can handle the pressure – and that’s not good for your reputation. Piastri’s reputation in this case.”
Verstappen’s position appears to occupy a confused hinterland between the theories that McLaren is tacitly putting its weight behind Norris – quite why it would do this is uncertain, but conspiracy theories inherently rely on circular reasoning – and beliefs that Piastri is cracking under pressure.
Oscar Piastri, McLaren
Photo by: Joe Portlock / LAT Images via Getty Images
There is no doubt that Piastri has had a run of four poor race weekends by his standards. He crashed twice in Azerbaijan, the latter interaction with the barrier eliminating him from the race after he jumped the start; in Singapore he underperformed in qualifying and was bullied out of the way by his team-mate on the opening lap; in Austin he also didn’t get the best out of the car in qualifying, then crashed on the opening lap of the sprint, taking out Norris. Lack of running on the medium tyre then compounded into a sub-optimal outcome in the race. In Mexico he struggled throughout on the low grip surface.
But does this, as some of McLaren’s critics suggest, mean Piastri is being deliberately held back?
“That may automatically seem that way but I have no insight into it,” said Verstappen. “If I were Piastri, though, I’d be standing up for myself now. Everyone assumed he was going to be champion, and that perception has changed very quickly.”
The suggestion that Piastri can cure his problems simply by standing up for himself is very much in keeping with Verstappen Sr’s character. Whether it holds any weight is another matter entirely.
McLaren’s position remains that it is committed to ensuring equality of opportunity for the two drivers. After qualifying in Mexico, where Piastri continued to struggle in low-grip conditions – as he had in Austin – the team went through an extensive debrief with him using video as well as data to help him adapt.
Team boss Andrea Stella’s working theory was that Norris is faster on low-grip tracks because, once he has enough feel for what the car is doing, he is prepared to lean on it a little more. In these circumstances there is a ‘sweet spot’ where lap time can be found through living with a little sliding, but not so much that it spikes the surface temperatures of the tyres.
Oscar Piastri, McLaren
Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images
“In this regime, you have to drive the car in a way that adapts to the fact that the car slides a lot and can slide and produce lap time,” Stella said. “And this is not necessarily the way in which Oscar feels naturally that he is producing lap time.”
“While we have a million different suggestions on how we should run our racing team, we’re sticking to our values,” McLaren CEO Zak Brown told Motorsport.com in an interview to be published next week.
“We’re going to stay true to our racing principles, which is we’re racers and we’re going to race each other hard, and we’re going to make it to the end.
“And our two drivers are going to shake hands and hopefully, we finish first and second. That’s what we’re pushing for and get in a situation where we let them decide who’s first and who’s second.”
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
– The Motorsport.com Team
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: motorsport.com
