A disastrous weekend from every point of view for McLaren, but above all for the world championship leader Oscar Piastri. The drivers of the papaya company shone, so to speak, only in FP3, which ended with Norris as leader followed by a Verstappen, already eager for victory and glory, and the Australian.
If you consider the rest, disastrous, it is an adjective that does not convey the idea at all. On Friday he was monopolized by Ferrari (who then found themselves playing shrimp in the remaining days), while on Saturday and Sunday, taking advantage of the particularly unpredictable conditions, Verstappen managed, as usual in these circumstances, to make the difference.
For Piastri it was a weekend of profound disappointment and reflection. McLaren knew that, just as had happened at Monza, they could experience a suffering GP against Red Bull, but with Oscar's double mistake (triple if we also consider the false start), the Grand Chelem was served to Max on a gold plate complete with fine stones set on the edge. The world championship leader has hit a wall on two occasions, first in qualifying on Saturday and then during the first lap of the GP on Sunday, also being the only one to retire at the end of the race.
Piastri makes mistakes and disappoints, but he still has many reasons to smile
Many think that Baku was a destructive weekend for Piastri, from which he will have a lot of difficulty getting up, but will it really be like this? We tried to identify with him a bit’ and after thinking about it carefully we believe that Oscar has several reasons to smile.
The first is certainly that, despite two errors certainly not suitable for a possible world champion, the defeats against Lando Norris, the direct pursuer, were not excessive. The Briton also had a less than positive weekend. Indeed in some ways, even more stressful from a psychological point of view. First of all he faced Q3 knowing that Piastri had hit the wall and had only managed to get a seventh place.
Then in the race, immediately after one lap, he was informed that Oscar had retired due to another accident and despite this he would have to give him a hand in the comeback, he wasn't even able to gain a position. With the last P7 he recovered only 6 points compared to his rival (the gap has dropped to 25 now).
Added to this is Verstappen who instead won and approached the papaya couple. Many consider Max a threat to the title race, and he is, of course he is. The chance to win is still in his ropes. However, if Piastri still has a margin of 69 points over the Dutchman, almost 3 wild cards with 7 to go, Norris has 44 instead and is almost starting to feel the breath on his neck.
Piastri, instead of worrying about Verstappen, should ‘rejoice’ at the moment, to have him a little closer to Lando because it is a factor that could contribute to significantly increasing the pressure on his rival. McLaren has certainly built the best car of 2025. Perhaps not the best everywhere, but the one capable of adapting better to different tracks. The points obtained in the constructors' championship speak for themselves. Think about how distressing it could be for Norris, and the same would happen for Piastri with roles reversed, if he found himself seeing his teammate win the title, Verstappen finishing in second place and having to settle for third position.
It would be a big disappointment. For this reason we currently think that Piastri has many more reasons to smile than to worry. Naturally he will have to review very carefully the episodes that led him to exclude himself from the battle of Baku and will have to demonstrate that he is a mature pilot, worthy of the title of world champion already in Singapore. Mistakes like that don't fit the kind of path he's taken since the beginning of this season.
Cover photo: X, Formula1; Internal photo: Red Bull Racing;
read the Italian version: Piastri sbaglia e delude, ma dopo Baku può trovare in Verstappen un inatteso alleato
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