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I find it hard to believe how the driver who had 14 podiums and seven wins in the first 16 races, is now having a real struggle with achieving even fifth place. Is it a case of Oscar Piastri feeling the pressure and leading to a few really costly mistakes, or do the tracks really differ that much throughout the season? – Allegra<\/b><\/p>\n
Piastri’s slump in form since he won the Dutch Grand Prix to take his seventh victory of the season in 15 races is indeed remarkable.<\/p>\n
I actually asked him on media day in Las Vegas whether he knew what had been going on, and this was his answer.<\/p>\n
“Austin and Mexico were quite different to the other races that have not gone so successfully,” he said.<\/p>\n
“There, there was a clear pace deficit and something pretty fundamental that just wasn’t working.<\/p>\n
“The other races have just been a combination of different things going wrong.<\/p>\n
“Obviously, Baku (where he crashed three times and jumped the start) was what it was. Singapore from a performance standpoint actually was pretty solid, just the race obviously didn’t pan out exactly how I wanted.<\/p>\n
“And even Brazil, the pace was good at points. The sprint crash didn’t have a great impact on the rest of the weekend. There were some things resulting from that that were suboptimal for the rest of the weekend.<\/p>\n
“So from a pace and performance point of view, Brazil was actually quite good, it was just that there were a lot of things that happened that meant the results weren’t on the table.<\/p>\n
“There was a couple of races where, yes, I needed to do some head scratching and work out what was going on, but the other races that have been tough have just been what some might say is a difficult world of motorsport.”<\/p>\n
That’s a pretty good summary of what’s been going on.<\/p>\n
But there’s another factor to bear in mind, in that Piastri is not driving in isolation. He is also being compared to his rivals, and in particular his team-mate.<\/p>\n
There is absolutely no question that, after a shaky start to the season, Lando Norris has moved up a gear or two since the summer break.<\/p>\n
Norris himself says the upward trend started before that – and it seems it began with the introduction of a tweak to the front suspension geometry in Canada aimed at enabling him to better feel the front of the car at the limit.<\/p>\n
Up until the Dutch Grand Prix, the head-to-head qualifying stats between the McLaren drivers were weighted in Piastri’s favour – but in terms of pure pace the margin was only 0.099 seconds.<\/p>\n
Since Monza, Piastri has out-qualified Norris only once, in Singapore, and the pace gap is 0.226secs in Norris’ favour.<\/p>\n
This has come about through hard, focused work from Norris, as he explained in Las Vegas. It’s now up to Piastri to respond.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n