{"id":162554,"date":"2025-09-23T04:03:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T04:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/162554\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T04:03:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T04:03:10","slug":"f1-news-piastri-brushes-off-verstappen-title-talk-after-baku-setback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/162554\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 news: Piastri brushes off Verstappen title talk after Baku setback"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Piastri
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOscar Piastri says he isn’t worried about the threat of Max Verstappen just yet for the 2025 title. Image: XPB Images<\/p>\n

The McLaren driver crashed out on the opening lap in Baku<\/a> after a difficult qualifying session and a jump-start penalty, while Verstappen dominated for his second consecutive win and fourth victory of the 2025 season.<\/p>\n

The result trimmed Piastri\u2019s advantage over Verstappen to 69 points with seven rounds remaining, fuelling hopes at Red Bull that their reigning champion could yet mount a late challenge.<\/p>\n

Piastri\u2019s teammate Lando Norris remains second in the title race, 25 adrift of the lead.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to rule him out, but I\u2019m honestly not too concerned with that,\u201d Piastri said when asked if Verstappen remained a threat.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just trying to bounce back from this weekend and put in the best performances that I can.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that if I get back to where I know I can be, then I\u2019ll be more than okay, so that\u2019s what I\u2019m going to focus on.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Australian admitted his Azerbaijan Grand Prix was \u201cmessy\u201d from start to finish after crashing in both qualifying and the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just locked up,\u201d he said of the race-ending incident at Turn 5.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think just ultimately misjudging the grip level.<\/p>\n

\u201cI probably lost that from dirty air, but I know better than that to expect the lack of grip. So I\u2019m certainly not blaming it on anything else.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was two simple errors on my behalf that they cost today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite Verstappen\u2019s back-to-back wins in Monza and Baku, Piastri stressed his approach will remain unchanged.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I felt like I was in a completely different headspace, then it\u2019s kind of easier to blame it on that and also a problem to rectify,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut this weekend\u2019s felt like any other weekend, just unfortunately, there\u2019s been far too many mistakes from start to finish. Every single session has been messy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko believes the defending champion can still pressure McLaren if the team maintains its current form.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe gap is still big, and it\u2019s not often that a McLaren doesn\u2019t finish the race,\u201d Marko told De Telegraaf.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we\u2019ll see. If we\u2019re competitive in Singapore in two weeks\u2019 time, maybe we can start dreaming.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to be as close as possible to McLaren to make them nervous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marko labelled Piastri the favourite for the championship but said Singapore will be a key indicator of Red Bull\u2019s chances.<\/p>\n

\u201cSingapore will be the benchmark for where we really stand,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only is it a different circuit, but it\u2019s also boiling hot. Our car doesn\u2019t always like that either.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Piastri\u2019s points lead remains healthy, McLaren\u2019s stumbles in recent rounds and Verstappen\u2019s renewed momentum have injected fresh intrigue into the final stretch of the 2025 season.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri says he isn’t worried about the threat of Max Verstappen just yet for the 2025 title.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162555,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,98125,825,806,805,803,804,2333,22708,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-162554","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-azerbaijan-gp","11":"tag-max-verstappen","12":"tag-motor","13":"tag-motor-sports","14":"tag-motosport","15":"tag-motosports","16":"tag-oscar-piastri","17":"tag-slot1_f1","18":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}