16/08/2025
NEWS STORY
Reviewing his season to date, Oscar Piastri picks Bahrain as his most complete performance.
Following the disaster that was his home race, the Australian claimed victory in China, while Bahrain saw the start of a run of three successive victories. Further wins in Spain and Belgium, together with podium finishes in all but one other race (Canada) saw him head into the summer break with a 9-point advantage.
While his teammate wears his heart on his sleeve, like the perfect Poker player Piastri gives nothing away, though the penalty meted out at Silverstone clearly hurt.
On the face of it, it would appear that to the Australian one win is as good as another. Not so, he insists, clearly delighted that McLaren's insistence on a 'free to race' policy allows him to fight for each win.
"It's been a lot of fun," he tells Autosport. "Firstly, it's pretty rare that anyone gets this opportunity in their F1 career, sSo I've been enjoying being able to fight for wins pretty much week in, week out.
"I feel like I was developing my strengths in my first couple of years," he adds, "and I feel like this year they've come together much more often."
Asked to pick a highlight, he says: "Bahrain was just a really, really strong weekend from start to finish. Qualifying was really strong, the race as well, that was the biggest gap that I had for the year.
"Barcelona was a similar kind of weekend," he adds. "I pick those two just on pure performance. However, I think most kind of emotional was probably Miami, just because it was a bit unexpected. It was a fun race."
One area which has seen a marked improvement this year is qualifying. Last year the Australian only out-qualified his teammate on four occasions, this year he has out-paced Lando Norris on eight of the fourteen weekends thus far.
"I was making a lot of races more difficult than I wanted to last year," he admits, "so trying to improve that has naturally made a lot of races look quite different to what I had last year. That was kind of a big focus point of 'how do I improve that result'.
"Obviously you can't just go into it saying, 'I'm going to qualify better this year'. You need to work out how. That's been a big focus, but I think a lot of the gains I've tried to make in chasing that have also transferred to race day as well."
In terms of the Papaya Rules which are going to be pushed to the limit in the remaining races, he says: "It is literally one rule, which is, don't crash into each other. But that's kind of an unsaid rule in every team."
Despite what the records might claim, Piastri is aware that McLaren didn't get off to the best start this year, some of the early races suggesting that the MCL39 was every bit as temperamental and erratic as some of its rivals.
"Our race runs were always very strong," he insists, "but in qualifying sims, we were genuinely struggling. I've been pretty happy with how it's been. For me, it's not been a big concern," he adds.
As for looking ahead to season's end.
"It sounds boring, and kind of is boring in some ways, but it is very true. You can't worry about what's going to happen in Abu Dhabi. Leaving each weekend knowing that I've done the absolute maximum I can, that's all you can ask for."
That and equal treatment to his teammate, which in the eyes of many, hasn't always been the case.