Oscar Piastri says he’s yet to feel the pressure of fighting for the championship despite leading teammate Lando Norris by just nine points at the resumption of the season in the Netherlands this weekend.
Piastri has led the title since the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, the fifth round of the campaign, with his advantage peaking at 22 points in Canada after Norris crashed out of the race late.
The Briton then clawed his way back into contention with victories in Austria, Great Britain and Hungary to get the gap back down to single digits with 10 rounds to go.
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Few would have expected Piastri in his third year to be leading the more experienced Norris at the halfway mark of what has largely been a straight fight between teammates, but the 24-year-old Melburnian said he has yet to feel the championship pressure.
“I would say I’ve handled it well,” he told the McLaren website. “But this has been the part of the year when the pressure isn’t really on in the championship fight.
“Obviously you don’t want to give away points, but it has been far too early to be thinking of the season in that way. At this stage you just want to go into the weekend trying to get the most out of it as you can rather than thinking of the championship overall.
“So yes, I think I’ve handled it well, but I haven’t concentrated on it much. The pressure is only going to increase from here.
“When we get to the latter part of the year, that is when the pressure will ramp up.”
While this is Piastri’s first title campaign, he’s not short of championship experience.
He arrived in Formula 1 with a prolific CV boasting three consecutive championships in Formula Renault Eurocup, Formula 3 and Formula 2, the latter two won in his rookie seasons.
“I won all three in different ways,” he said. “In Formula Renault I was quick but made quite a few mistakes. In F3 my ultimate pace wasn’t as good but I was consistently there and in the fight. In F2 I think that was the best of the three in how I combined pace with consistency.
“What that has taught me is that there is no one single way to win a championship. Obviously you want to be as fast as you can as often as possible, but knowing when to pick your moments and take risks is important.”
Piastri clinched all three championships at their final weekends. This season is also tipped to run until the last round in Abu Dhabi.
In Formula 3 and Formula 2 his teammates were among his chief title protagonists.
It was clear from early in the season that Norris and Piastri were the only likely championship challengers, but the Australian says the rivalry is yet to get between them.
“Our relationship hasn’t really changed,” he said. “The competitive environment is quite different this year, yes, but our relationship is pretty much the same.
“The way we work together, how we try and help the team, and what we want from the car — it is all the same.
“I think we’re both very conscious that we want to have success with this team for a long time. That is not lost on either of us. Healthy competition is important of course, but it is important to keep the team united, and I think we both have that in the back of our minds.”
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McLaren is comfortably the form team of the season. It’s won all but three races, and at only one event, the Canadian Grand Prix, has it failed to get at least one driver onto the podium.
Its advantage has only increased as the season has continued. The team is on a four-race run of consecutive one-two finishes and has had five perfect results from the last six rounds.
With next year’s sweeping regulation changes disincentivising rival teams from attempting to catch up, it’s likely Piastri and Norris will have the run of things at most tracks between this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix and the Yas Marina finale.
“I think we have been strong pretty much at every circuit in every condition, and that gives you a lot of confidence as a driver,” Piastri said. “That has been a real strength of ours.
“The competition has been very close to us in pretty much every single race — with a couple of exceptions — but it has often been a different opponent each weekend.
“It has been a lot of fun and gives you a lot of confidence to go into a weekend and know you should be fighting for a win at least.”
At no point this season has the unflappable Piastri looked like he’s lacked confidence, even as he lost points to Norris in three of the previous four races, when circumstances and luck were determining factors in undermining his competitive speed.
It means he sees his path the championship clearly as he embarks on the first of 10 races in 15 weeks to decide the title.
“It is about continuing to do what I am doing,” he said. “What I am most proud of is that even on the weekends when I feel that everything hasn’t come together, it has still often been enough to fight for the win, and that is encouraging.
“I just want us to keep doing the same things as a team and to try and find even more performance.”