Follow us on Google Discover Oscar Piastri has lost all the momentum he had built up in the 2025 Formula 1 title fight before the summer break.
The Aussie hasn’t won since the first race back from a four-week break in August, and his McLaren teammate Lando Norris has started to assert himself as the lead car in their pursuit of the drivers’ championship.
At the last race in Mexico, Piastri relinquished the lead in the title race for the first time in six months, which is a reflection of how his performances have fallen away. He achieved podiums in 15 of the first 17 races this year, but has since gone four weekends without any trophies.
Zak Brown was right about Piastri when he insisted that both of his drivers were equal. They’re separated by just one point at the business end of the season. Piastri will have an advantage in Qatar, but everywhere else is fair game in his pursuit of a maiden Formula 1 crown.
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Photo by Mark Sutton – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty ImagesOscar Piastri must listen to Jenson Button’s story of winning the 2009 F1 title
Piastri will be terrified by what Mercedes said about Norris after he dominated Sunday’s Mexican Grand Prix, winning it by over 30 seconds. They believe that despite being so quick, he was only driving at 90% of his capacity.
Somehow, the 23-year-old needs to turn the tide back in his favour, but the way his results are heading feels strangely similar to Jenson Button’s 2009 season. After winning six of the first seven races that year, he appeared on the podium twice in the next 10 events, failing to win again and scraping across the line.
To avoid a repeat of that, Piastri could do with taking note of some of the things that Button said in an interview with Motorsport.com last year, where he admitted that he put too much ‘pressure’ on himself to perform, leaving his head in the ‘wrong place’.
“You always want to do better,” said Button. “So even after winning three races, not being quickest in a practice session was a failure. Not being on pole in qualifying was a failure.
“I got to the point where I put so much pressure on myself after those seven races, [if] I got to a race where the car didn’t work, I couldn’t get the best out of it. My head was in the wrong place already.
“Everything was a failure apart from a win, whereas I should have been at the point where: ‘Well, we’re not quickest, but I got to get the best out of the car, and finishing on the podium is still a win because people aren’t really taking many points off of us.’”
Why Oscar Piastri’s Formula 1 tale might end differently from Jenson Button’s
Button told Piastri to stop thinking about mistakes and to try and move on quickly from any errors that might be stuck in his head.
It has been 17 years since McLaren last crowned a drivers’ champion from within their own team, and it’s a moment which their fans have been waiting a long time to experience once more.
Max Verstappen is still an outsider to claim his fifth consecutive title, but he can never be counted out. It’s another problem for Piastri to contend with.
Of the four remaining races, Piastri finished between seventh and 10th in three of them at the end of 2024. That won’t console him too much, but he does still have the fastest car on the grid overall, and the tools at his disposal to come out on top, he just needs to back himself when it’s most important.