F1 Q&A: Norris, Piastri and Verstappen title battle; Las Vegas disqualifications and Sainz-Albon at Williams

I find it hard to believe that the driver, who achieved 14 podiums and seven wins in the first 16 races, is now struggling seriously to take fifth place. Is it a case of Oscar Piastri feeling the pressure and causing a few truly costly mistakes, or are the tracks really that different throughout the season? – Allegra

Piastri’s decline in form since winning the Dutch Grand Prix, his seventh victory of the season in 15 races, is truly remarkable.

I actually asked him if he knew what was going on at media day in Las Vegas and this was his response.

“Austin and Mexico were quite different from other races that weren’t as successful.” he said.

“There was a clear speed gap there and something quite basic wasn’t working.

“Other races were a combination of different things going wrong.

“Obviously Baku (where he crashed three times and skipped the start) was like that. Performance-wise Singapore was actually pretty solid, but the race obviously didn’t turn out quite the way I wanted it to.”

“Even Brazil had good pace in the points. The sprint crash didn’t have a big impact on the rest of the weekend. There were some things that came out of that that were not enough for the rest of the weekend.”

“So in terms of pace and performance Brazil were actually quite good, but a lot of things happened that meant results were not on the table.

“Yes, there were a few races where I had to scratch my head a bit and figure out what was going on, but the other races that were tough were what some would call the tough world of motorsport.”

That’s a pretty good summary of what’s going on.

But there’s another factor to keep in mind: Piastri isn’t driving alone. He is also compared to his rivals, especially his teammate.

After a shaky start to the season, there’s no doubt that Lando Norris has stepped up a gear or two since the summer break.

Norris says the upward trend started before that, and it looks like it started with a change to the front suspension geometry in Canada to make the front of the car feel better at the limits.

Until the Dutch Grand Prix, the head-to-head qualifying statistics among McLaren drivers were in Piastri’s favour, but in terms of pure speed the difference was just 0.099 seconds.

Since Monza, Piastri has overtaken Norris only once in Singapore, with the pace difference standing at 0.226 seconds in Norris’ favour.

As he explained in Las Vegas, this came about through hard and focused work from Norris. Now it’s up to Piastri to respond.