Piastri has lost the championship lead. This is where the damage has been done

3 months ago 8

In a nail-bitingly close Formula 1 championship battle, the roles of hunter and the hunted can rapidly see-saw. Oscar Piastri has always preferred the latter role.

In June, nearly halfway through the F1 calendar, the then beaming championship leader told reporters he enjoyed being pursued.

Lando Norris now leads the 2025 F1 championship.

“I enjoy being the hunted, I’ve said it before because it normally means you’re doing something right if you’re in that spot,” he said ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix.

Fast-forward to the Mexico City Grand Prix and Piastri has been hunted down. For the first time in 189 days, Piastri is no longer the championship leader. With four races to go, his teammate and rival Lando Norris is now leading the drivers’ standings.

More than two kilometres above sea level, the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez track in Mexico City is one of the most unique races on the calendar, renowned for its overtaking spots and hairpins.

Norris drove a superb race on Monday morning (AEDT), weathering a chaotic opening lap and converting pole position to win his 10th grand prix by 32 seconds – snapping his five-race losing streak.

The result means the British driver leads Piastri in the drivers’ championship by a single point.

Piastri struggled in qualifying but salvaged his race, fighting valiantly from ninth to fifth place after getting caught in traffic on the first lap.

But he was unable to catch 20-year-old rookie Oliver Bearman in fourth, who secured the best result of his career.

A relieved Charles Leclerc nabbed second place and managed to fend off a resurgent Max Verstappen thanks to a last-minute yellow flag and virtual safety car on the penultimate lap, called after a rogue Williams car went into the barriers.

Verstappen, the Red Bull champion, sits 35 points behind Piastri, and remains in contention for a fifth world championship.

If he managed to secure fourth place, Piastri would have retained his lead in the drivers’ standings.

Fifth placed Oscar Piastri now has four races to claw back the lead.

Now, he is up close in Norris’ rear-vision mirror and must navigate dealing with a car that suddenly seems to be struggling with pace.

“Like the whole race, I was right behind someone and just struggling with dirty air,” Piastri said with a hint of frustration in a post-race interview.

“So that was pretty difficult. But I think for me, the biggest thing is trying to learn the things I wanted to learn today. Yesterday, it became obvious that after the session there were a few things that I needed to change, pretty majorly in how I was driving, and today was about first to try to level the damage, but also try and learn some things about that.

“When your teammate wins the race, finishing fifth’s nothing that extravagant,” he continued.

This was Piastri’s best finish in Mexico City – he finished eighth in 2024.

Although he minimised the damage by collecting 10 points for his fifth placing, the real damage to his position in the drivers’ standings was done during qualifying.

Norris was quickest in the final practice session, topped the time sheets at the end of Q2 and secured pole with a flying lap time of 1:15.586. Piastri’s pace paled in comparison. He could only produce a lap time of 1:16.174 to qualify eighth. His saving grace was a penalty for Carlos Sainz, which promoted him to seventh on the grid.

Piastri’s qualifying performance has dropped substantially in recent weeks. He qualified in sixth place in Texas, third in Singapore, ninth in Azerbaijan and third at Monza. He has not qualified better than third since the Dutch Grand Prix.

To reclaim the driver’s championship, Piastri desperately needs to improve his qualifying times and beat Norris to pole. Except he only has four races left.

In a post-race interview, Piastri denied that he’d lost confidence in his driving ability, but cryptically said he had to “drive differently over the past few weekends”.

“I think that’s been a little bit strange to get my head around because I’ve been driving exactly the same as I have all year, except these last couple of weekend the car or the tyres have required a quite different way of driving,” he said.

Piastri said it was “nothing to do with the car” but said the pace had changed, conceding Norris had adapted better.

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

While the Mexico result was disappointing for Piastri, it marked a remarkable recovery for Norris whose championship hopes looked dire back in September. Norris suffered a mechanical failure at the Dutch Grand Prix and was forced to retire, granting Piastri a 34-point lead in the championship standings.

Eight short weeks later, Norris is back in front and a determined Verstappen remains within striking distance.

What once appeared to be an internal McLaren battle has transformed into a three-way title race that will likely be decided under the fireworks at the finale in Abu Dhabi.