Oscar Piastri issues ‘painful’ claim as McLaren driver rates his F1 title chances (2024)

Oscar Piastri has endured a difficult run of form in recent rounds but will be one of the drivers expected to fight for the Formula 1 title next year with McLaren so competitive.

The Woking squad are in a fight for the constructors’ championship this season and lead the standings with three rounds to go. McLaren have not won a constructors’ title since 1998 as Mika Hakkinen also won the drivers’ championship. But Ferrari and Red Bull are still threats.

McLaren only hold a 36-point lead over Ferrari and have a 49-point advantage over Red Bull before the 2024 Las Vegas Grand Prix. Piastri has scored 262 of McLaren’s 593 points with Lando Norris offering 331, for the pair to rank in fourth and second in the drivers’ standings.

Oscar Piastri is ‘ready’ to fight for an F1 title despite a ‘painful’ run of results

Norris must outscore Red Bull rival Max Verstappen by at least three points in the Las Vegas GP to take the drivers’ title fight to the Qatar Grand Prix. Piastri also needs to get his season back on track in Sin City to threaten Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc for third place in the standings.

Piastri was the in-form driver from the Austrian Grand Prix to the Singapore Grand Prix with 150 of his points. Norris scored 129, Verstappen scored 112, Lewis Hamilton scored 104 and Leclerc scored 97 over those eight rounds. But Piastri has only secured 25 in the three since.

His purple patch also saw Piastri win his first Formula 1 Grand Prix in Hungary and win again in Azerbaijan plus claim podiums in Austria, Belgium, Italy and Singapore. But he admits the United States, Mexico City and Sao Paulo Grands Prix were ‘painful’ after a best finish of P5.

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Piastri takes comfort in the problems he endured in Austin, Mexico City and Sao Paulo were not the same as when the McLaren pilot experienced those tracks for the first time in 2023. So, the Australian feels ready to return in 2025 and fight for an F1 title in Piastri’s third year.

“I struggled in a couple of the races early on in the season and, obviously, the last couple of races have been a bit painful, as well,” Piastri told the 2024 Las Vegas GP race programme.

“But I think with more experience, they’re not the same problems I faced last year in these races. They’ve just been either off weekends or something else has gone wrong, as opposed to [a] pure performance deficit. I think I feel ready to fight for a championship next year.

“I’ll just keep trying to improve in the back end of this year, try and learn as much as I can and hopefully that’s the position we’re in [in 2025] because it’d be a pretty cool place to be.”

Oscar Piastri needs to match Max Verstappen’s consistency to win an F1 title

Piastri proved during his purple patch that the Melbourne native can cut it at the sharp end of an F1 grid. As Norris and McLaren argued about team orders in Hungary, Piastri kept calm to win his first Grand Prix. Piastri also ignored McLaren to win in Baku when passing Leclerc.

But Piastri cost himself in qualifying for the Mexico City GP by locking up into Turn 12, losing the lap for exceeding track limits to drop out in Q1. The best the Australian could claim from P17 on the grid at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez was P8 while Norris finished second.

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Qualifying in P8 helped to cost Piastri in the Sao Paulo GP, as well, but struggling to overtake Liam Lawson derailed his race more. It took the McLaren star until Lap 26 to try an overtake on the Visa Cash App RB pilot but Piastri hit Lawson into T1 in Brazil to draw a time penalty.

If Piastri is to fight for the Formula 1 championship in 2025, the McLaren star cannot afford off weekends like his in Mexico and Brazil. Consistency has been key for Verstappen in 2024 with his fourth successive title up for grabs, despite Red Bull no longer dominating the field.

Verstappen won seven of the first 10 Grand Prix this year, but then waited from the Spanish Grand Prix to the Sao Paulo GP to win another feature race. Yet the Dutchman’s consistency in that period to extract everything the RB20 had only let Norris cut a 69-point margin to 47.

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