McLaren Racing Formula One driver Oscar Piastri’s championship battle might have gotten hotter after his most recent setback at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, where he crashed out of the race and scored no points. With seven rounds to go before the 2025 season ends, the question is, can he handle the high pressure?
Piastri leads the 2025 Drivers’ Standings with 324 points, but after the race at Baku, the gap to his runner-up teammate Lando Norris has been reduced to 25 points. Max Verstappen’s victories in the last two Grands Prix have brought him back into the championship fight, although the 69-point gap to Piastri can only be achieved if McLaren falters on every race weekend.
Given the consistency in the regulations, a tightening grid could give McLaren and Piastri a hard time, especially if it fails to address the pit stop problem that compromised Norris’ position at Baku. Not to mention the Briton’s DNF at Zandvoort due to a mechanical problem, which put a huge dent in his championship prospects after smoke billowed from his MCL39 F1 car.
Despite the narrow gap that exists between the top drivers, Piastri said that he is prepared to take on the pressure of an intense championship battle playing out in the races to come, given his experience in winning the F2 and F3 championships. Speaking to the media, he said:
Oscar Piastri of Australia and McLaren answers questions in the TV media pen during qualifying ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Azerbaijan at Baku City Circuit on September 20, 2025 in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Oscar Piastri of Australia and McLaren answers questions in the TV media pen during qualifying ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Azerbaijan at Baku City Circuit on September 20, 2025 in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Jayce Illman/Getty Images
“The intensity will kind of naturally increase as we get closer to the end of the year, and I’m ready for that. I’ve been in this position before in other championships, and that kind of feeling and that countdown to the end of the year are the same.
“So I am ready for that, and I can lean on Mark [Webber] (former champion and Piastri’s manager), but it is ultimately down to how I manage it, how I drive, and how I cope with things which are going to be coming.
“But having an important team around you and a good group of people around you is very important to be able to lean on, and Mark is certainly one of those people, and I’m excited to see how it goes.”
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella acknowledged the need for his team to up its game after Norris’ pit stop setback at Baku and Monza, especially at this crucial juncture in the championship. He said:
“Definitely in terms of pit stops, that’s an area in which we have already concentrated our efforts. As a matter of fact, we need to keep working because there’s some important performance that is available through pit stops.
“And we have seen that the racing, if anything, is getting tighter and tighter. So what is the impact of a pit stop now gets more and more important.
“Definitely for the remainder of the season and also thinking about next year’s car, there’s work to do from a pit stop point of view — for what is the execution of the pit stop – but also the hardware such that executing a pit stop for our crew is just more straightforward and more natural.
“There’s still some interactions between the operator and the hardware that should be improved from a hardware point of view.”