Oscar Piastri ‘pressure’ admission as ‘slight dangerous’ title stance emerges

Dropping points to Lando Norris in three successive races, Oscar Piastri’s race engineer Tom Stallard says the championship leader is in the “slightly dangerous” position of feeling that “this” is his chance as it only increases the pressure on his shoulders.

But the former British rowing Olympian believes his driver has the strength to deal with that pressure.

Oscar Piastri’s title fight: What you need to know

⦁ Oscar Piastri leads the standings by 22 points ahead of the Austin Sprint
⦁ Piastri has lost points to Lando Norris in the last three races
⦁ Race engineer urged Oscar Piastri to just ‘do your thing’

34 points ahead of Norris after the Dutch Grand Prix, where Piastri claimed his seventh grand prix of the campaign, the Australian’s lead is now less than a race win’s worth of points as Norris has clawed his way back into contention.

The Briton finished at the Italian Grand Prix after McLaren’s controversial call for Piastri to give P2 to his teammate after a slow pit stop saw Norris emerge behind Piastri on the track having been ahead prior to McLaren’s mistake.

One race later in Baku, the championship leader suffered his worst weekend of the season when he crashed in both qualifying and the grand prix. Moving on to Singapore, there was yet more controversy from McLaren as Norris barged Piastri out of the way at the start of the race, thereby breaking the Woking team’s much-lauded papaya regulations.

The breathing room that Piastri had after Zandvoort, having led by more than a race win, was completely wiped out.

Oscar Piastri v Lando Norris head-to-head stats

? F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates

? F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

The 24-year-old could yet suffer another blow, although a minor one given only eight points are up for grabs in a Sprint, in Austin after a “scruffy” qualifying lap left him P3 on the grid behind Max Verstappen and Norris.

But in typical Piastri fashion, he wasn’t getting bogged down in it all.

“It’s nothing major,” he insisted, “it’s not like it’s been a disastrous day at all, it’s just been a little bit of a messy lap that I can hopefully tidy up tomorrow.”

It’s that demeanour from the Australian that has his race engineer Stallard believing he has the mental strength to deal with the growing pressure of the title fight.

But in a scenario that would be one and done in light of next year’s regulatory reset, the former Olympian has warned that the feeling that this could be the chance comes with its own perils.

“Hopefully, we’ll be in the same position next year, but we definitely have that Olympic-every-four-years kind of feeling, that feeling that this is our chance,” he told ESPN.

“And that’s always a slightly dangerous thing to feel, because very much handling pressure is about doing what you’re good at, rather than delivering some magic. And normally, when it looks like magic to the rest of the world, it’s actually just because you went out and did your thing. So we’ll be trying to do that.

“I think we’re both quite well placed to handle that pressure.

“You’re right in that the pressure is going to ramp up, but people say pressure is a privilege.

“That pressure is something that he’s worked for, for let’s say 10 years, arguably more, in order to be in a position where he can have that pressure. And it’s very rare that you get to be World Champion without being able to ride that pressure.

“So, I think it comes with the territory, and we’re in the territory we want to be in.”

Q: And you can see Piastri is cracking under pressure..

Helmut: “Yes, and Max is doing the best to put that pressure higher and higher.” pic.twitter.com/2v7F6jOaM6

— Verstappen News (@verstappenews) October 17, 2025

Oscar Piastri: Australia’s next World Champion?

Piastri stands on the cusp of history as the Australian seeks to become his country’s first World Champion since Alan Jones in 1980. Although others such as Mark Webber and Daniel Ricciardo have tried, and featured on a season’s podium, they fell short.

But is the pressure getting to Piastri?

Although his cool, calm and stoic demeanour was prevalent in the first half of the season, Piastri is making more mistakes the closer the season gets to the final chequered flag.

In Azerbaijan he made three alone in his qualifying and grand prix crashes, while he also made a false start off the line before hitting anti-stall. It was widely noted that it was Piastri’s first big mistakes since the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

Talk of him cracking, though, was very much premature.

Then came Singapore. The usually stoic Piastri was clearly annoyed by McLaren’s decision not to take action against Norris at the moment. There was more emotion in his voice in that brief conversation with Stallard than there had been all season.

Whether that continued to play in his head for the remaining 61 laps of the race, Piastri never once launched an attack on Norris despite running behind his teammate.

Instead of bouncing back in Sprint qualifying in Austin, Piastri, by his own admission, had a “pretty scruffy lap” where he “just didn’t really get it together”. In a season in which Norris has been the one complaining about his qualifying laps, the Briton finished ahead of his teammate.

Perhaps Piastri’s blasé attitude towards pressure has finally realised the magnitude of what he is fighting for.

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