Oscar Piastri said before this pivotal weekend that you’d always rather be in the title lead than not given it signifies you’re doing something right.

Lando Norris now has that status, and right now he’s doing plenty right.

Over a 24-round campaign, it’s important to peak at the right time. The physical toll this season takes on the drivers is underestimated, and that’s especially the case for those bearing the mental load of competing for the world championship.

Norris appears to have found that balance.

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He’s been the better McLaren driver at four of the six rounds since the mid-season break. He’s now tied Piastri 10-10 head to head in qualifying but has emerged with a slender 0.014-second single-lap speed advantage.

He’s up 11-7 head to head in race conditions, and while he was six wins to Piastri’s seven, more indicative of his recent form is that he leads the Australian 16-14 for podium finishes.

His victory in Mexico was absolute.

It was his fourth career hat-trick — winning from pole after leading every lap — and his 30.324-second victory margin by far the largest of the season.

His margin over Piastri was exaggerated by him running in clear air while the Australian toiled in traffic, but at a whopping 42.065 — the biggest between them all season — it was nonetheless illustrative of the gulf in their performances this weekend.

“What a race!” he said. “I could just keep my eyes forward and focus on what I was doing.

“It was a pretty straightforward race for me, which was just what I was after.

“A good start, good launch, good first lap, and I could go from there.

“It’s one weekend at a time. I’m happy. I’m focused on myself. I keep my head down. I keep to myself, and it’s working at the minute, so I’m happy.”

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Chaotic Mexico GP race recep | 09:18

PIASTRI’S THEORY ON POINTS SLUMP AFTER LOSING THE TITLE LEAD

A workmanlike fightback wasn’t enough to prevent Piastri from losing the lead, but it did limit the damage done to his championship hopes.

A 15-point turnaround in Norris’s favour means the Australian is just one point behind his teammate. He’s on the back foot, but at least it’s as good as even rather there being a significant comeback required.

But the points gap is less concerning than the way Norris has been able to reduce and then reverse the championship picture.

The last two rounds have been particularly challenging for Piastri, the Australian having shipped 23 points to Norris. It’s the biggest flow of points away from him since he lost 23 points to the Briton at the season-opening race in Melbourne.

Understanding why his form has deserted him suddenly and at a critical time of the year has been more important than the championship picture.

“I think for me the biggest thing is trying to learn the things I wanted to learn today,” he told Sky Sports after the race. “I think yesterday it kind of became obvious after the session that there were a few things I needed to change pretty majorly in how I was driving, and today was about first tyring to limit the damage but trying to learn some things about that.

“If I made some progress with that, then I’ll be happy.”

McLaren boss Andrea Stella said as early as in Austin, the previous race, that low-grip surfaces are Piastri’s Achilles heel. He made the parallel between this and Piastri generally being stronger on fresh tyres but Norris taking the ascendancy at the end of a stint, when the rubber yields less grip.

He pointed out that the rend was clear at the last low-grip track the sport visited, in Montreal, which was just second time Piastri had finished off the podium up to that point.

It’s a situation Piastri said he became alive to in Mexico.

“I think I’ve just had to drive very differently the last couple of weekends, or I’ve not driven differently when I should have,” he explained.

“I think that’s been a little bit kind of strange to get my head around, because I’ve been driving exactly the same as I have all year, it’s just that these last couple of weekends the car or the tyres or something have required quite a different way of driving, and I’ve just not really gone to that.

“The car’s obviously not changed for a while now, so it’s nothing to do with the car.

“Given how the pace has differentiated the last couple of races, clearly Lando’s found it a bit easier to just dial into that and I haven’t.

“I’ve tried a few things with trying to change things up a bit today. Once we analyse if it’s effective or not, that’ll hopefully help see some progress.”

The upcoming circuits should swing back towards Piastri’s driving style. The next race in Brazil will offer more conventional grip, as will the season-ending Qatar and Abu Dhabi grands prix. Only Las Vegas presents as a low-grip surface, though the track layout there will likely be tough for McLaren generally, making it relatively less of a danger round relative to Norris.

In that context Piastri maintained he had no concerns about his core form ahead of the decisive final weeks of competition.

“I think it’s important to remember for the other 19 races the way I’ve been driving has been working pretty well,” he said. “It’s more about adding some tools to the toolbox rather than reinventing myself.”

Russell continues to fume post race | 03:02

VERSTAPPEN SALVAGES POINT AT WHAT COULD BE FINAL RED BULL WEAK CIRCUIT

If you win titles on your bad days, Verstappen reducing his championship deficit despite Red Bull Racing suffering a generally uncompetitive weekend might be indicative of the Dutchman’s potency in the title battle.

Having decaled after qualifying fifth on Saturday that he’d need cars to retire ahead of him to make up any places, he came just 0.725 seconds — and probably one VSC deployment — short of second place in a feisty and sometimes messy race to keep himself in contention.

“As soon as we went to the soft, we just seemed a bit more competitive — not compared to Lando, but I think second fastest more or less,” he said. “At least we did the perfect strategy — [start on] medium, try and go long, then optimise the final stint on softs while everyone was on the mediums struggling.”

Perfection, as he said after dominating in Austin, is what he needs. In terms of execution at least, he and the team have remained flawless.

He’s now just 36 points off the title lead, still with his championship destiny barely in his own hands if he can return to the top step in Brazil.

But having had seemingly unstoppable momentum pretty much since the mid-season break, Red Bull Racing being more than a step behind McLaren is worthy of consideration here.

The high-altitude demands of Mexico City are peculiar to the calendar. The lack of aerodynamic grip produced in the thin air is one thing, but another is the strain it puts on cooling.

We’ve talked a lot this year about McLaren’s better thermal management of the tyres, but less has been said of its management of car temperature overall.

It was notable that McLaren made no significant bodywork changes this weekend to cool the car. Red Bull Racing, on the other hand, had to open myriad vents in the bodywork to keep the internals cool — so much so you could see the Honda badge on the power unit.

Every additional cooling louvre opened has a detrimental effect on aerodynamic performance. Given downforce is already so scarce at this altitude, it’s reasonable to conclude at least some of Red Bull Racing’s struggles were down to this.

No other track on the calendar is anywhere near as elevated as Mexico City. This is therefore unlikely to be a problem anywhere else this season.

Escaping with third might therefore be no major drama for Verstappen’s late charge into title contention.

Marshalls cross track during Lawson lap | 00:23

TSUNODA SOUNDS LIKE A DEAD MAN WALKING

Verstappen’s punchy third served only to reflect more poorly on teammate Yuki Tsunoda, who returned his third scoreless weekend from the last five races. He finished 11th, exactly where he qualified — it was his third consecutive failure to reach Q3 — thought that was one place down from where he started on the grid after gaining a place through penalties for others.

It’s hardly the sort of result the Japanese star needed on what could have been a decisive weekend for his Formula 1 future, Red Bull having originally earmarked Mexico as an internal deadline to make a call on its driver line-ups.

While management suggested ahead of the weekend that that call will now be delayed, few in the paddock believe that Tsunoda has done enough to prevent Isack Hadjar from taking his place next season.

Perhaps Tsunoda knows that now too, with cagey post-race media interviews striking an unusually defensive tone.

“Today was easy points. We just threw it away,” he said. “This kind of situation, missing out on points that easily we could’ve taken today — P8, P7, I don’t know — [is] frustrating.”

He expanded to speaking to Sky Sports, where he said his frustration was about more than just a slow pit stop that cost him almost 10 seconds, alluding to a “situation” that he couldn’t elaborate.

Yuki calls out 12 second pit stop | 02:17

“There were a couple of things that I flagged but I wasn’t able to avoid,” he said cryptically. “I managed to save that situation, which I can’t say here, but it’s very frustrating.

“To be honest, it was pretty much out of my control.”

While Tsunoda was on the same strategy as Verstappen, featuring a long first stint, it was clear he was struggling more than the Dutchman on the uncompetitive medium tyre, losing five positions in the five laps before his pit stop.

Most of those cars, though, were possible challengers to Verstappen’s podium finish. One of them was title contender Piastri.

“I understand the situation,” he said. “Probably in hindsight I was able to help Max a little bit as well to score more points for P3, but also I think we can also score points with both cars. It was possible.

“I don’t know what to say. It was literally out of my control today. A shame.”

His demeanour throughout was downbeat, even as he attempted to defend himself by arguing he maximised the things he could control in the race and that his pace in the opening stint was generally competitive.

But even he seemed unconvinced that that was enough to save his own skin.

BEARMAN GETS CAREER-BEST RESULT — WITH A LITTLE HELP OF THE VSC

They’ll be partying long into the night in Chelmsford — about 70 kilometres northeast of London, for those wondering — after Oliver Bearman took home a career-best fourth in Mexico City.

It was a pleasingly assured drive by the Briton as what’s been an inconsistent season hits a reliable stride. He’s scored three rounds in a row and five times from the last eight weekends.

It puts him ahead of teammate Esteban Ocon, over whom he also holds a slender qualifying advantage.

In other words, Bearman has ascended from chaotic rookie to contender for leadership of the Haas team in 20 weekends.

It’s a great result made only sweeter for him and Haas for the calibre of drivers he had to race to get there.

“Actually we had the pace,” he said. “I held off Max in the first stint, I held off the Mercs in the second and I held off the McLaren in the third one.

“I was under a lot of pressure, and I think spent more time looking in my rear-view mirrors than in front, but that’s sometimes how it has to be.

“Obviously my goal in life is to fight there week in, week out,” he said. “I didn’t expect to be racing a McLaren, a Red Bull, a Merc or even racing a Ferrari this year — I expected that in future years, but to do it already this year is a very special feeling.”

A podium was on the cards during the first stint, but a decision to make a second stop to avoid being caught and passed by the Mercedes drivers or Piastri left him fourth, even if the late virtual safety car was a little lucky break to lock it in.

It was a contentious call from race control to deploy the VSC for a lap or so on the penultimate tour, just as Piastri brought Bearman into range — and just as Verstappen locked onto the back of Leclerc.

Carlos Sainz was the cause, spinning out in the stadium section, but the Spaniard appeared to limp to safety behind a barrier in a bid to avoid interrupting the race.

It infuriated some pundits that a thrilling conclusion had been robbed by overcautiousness, but the FIA explained later that a combination of Sainz’s car appearing to be on fire and it still being partially on track required marshals to walk through the run-off area to recover the car.

Having marshals on track always requires — or should always require; see the Liam Lawson incident earlier in the race as to why — the VSC, so there was no avoiding the anticlimactic ending.

But it was good news for Bearman, who’s up to 14th in the standings, and Haas, who jumped Sauber for eighth on the teams table.