Oscar Piastri ‘problems’ are obvious at Mexico GP as Max Verstappen gets fresh chance

Oscar Piastri has endured a nightmare run that began with a DNF in Baku and was exacerbated by an underwhelming display at the United States Grand Prix last weekend

Helmut Marko believes Oscar Piastri is grappling with ‘problems’ as he attempts to reignite his World Championship campaign in Mexico City. Both Lando Norris and Max Verstappen have outperformed the Aussie in each of the last four Grand Prix weekends.

Piastri clocked the fourth-fastest time in the weekend’s first free practice session, albeit trailing Charles Leclerc in P1 by four-tenths of a second, with nine rookies on the track. In FP2, he slipped to 12th place, over six-tenths slower than team-mate and title contender Norris.

“He was clearly behind Norris,” Red Bull adviser Marko told Sky Germany. ” Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko told Sky Germany. “It looks like he has problems at the moment. But it’s only Friday, maybe they can fix that. But first, let’s see if we can solve our own problems, and then we’ll look at the competition.”

For the majority of the season, Piastri was impeccable, securing seven Grand Prix victories. However, after an uncharacteristic DNF in Baku, his form took a hit.

His performance in Austin was particularly concerning, where he lacked the pace of the cars ahead of him, finishing fifth in the Grand Prix to cap a forgettable weekend which also saw him crash out in the Sprint race with team-mate Norris.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella delved into the Aussie’s struggles, expressing confidence in his driver’s ability to bounce back. “I think it’s two-fold,” he explained. Clearly, when we look at the last four races – drivers, team – there’s more that we could have done.

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“There’s more that we could have extracted. And this is not only Oscar. This is Lando, this is Andrea, this is the entire team. We could have done a little bit better. At the same time, circuits like Austin are pretty unique circuits where you have very low grip and the tyres don’t grain, and you can wear the tyres and they still work.

“And I think this is a regime in which Oscar… he’s relatively young as a Formula 1 driver. And certainly, his strength is that as soon as he spots something he can do better, he improves at the speed of light.”

Addressing the United States Grand Prix disaster specifically, Stella continued: “The conditions of Austin are something that he understood he could have driven in a slightly different way.

“He got it. The next time we have the same situation, he will do it. It’s part of the development of a driver, which is the reason why, actually, despite being so young, he is leading the championship. He understands, he processes, he learns.”