SINGAPORE — Oscar Piastri has said he cannot afford more race weekends like the Azerbaijan Grand Prix if he is to close out this year’s drivers’ championship ahead of Lando Norris and Max Verstappen.
Piastri crashed out on the opening lap of the race in Baku two weeks ago, bringing a 44-race point-scoring streak to an end.
McLaren teammate Norris finished the race seventh, reducing the gap to Piastri to 25 points in the standings, while Verstappen took his second win in a row to close his gap to Piastri to 69 points with seven races remaining.
After losing 35 points to Verstappen at the last two races, Piastri said the Baku weekend served as a reminder of how quickly his championship lead can disappear.
“I think even disregarding who won the race, we don’t want to have weekends like Baku and we know we can’t afford to have weekends like Baku,” Piastri said.
“Certainly, from my side of things there were some tough lessons to take, but I think as a team we recognised a few opportunities from the weekend to try and improve. That’s always an important thing.
“I think Baku was quite a good reminder of firstly how quickly everything can change, but also on some of the things that have made the season so successful for myself and the team. I think just trying to stay focused on that will naturally take care of the championship picture.”
Piastri’s Baku weekend started to unravel in qualifying when he crashed in Q3 and lined up ninth on the grid.
A jump start then saw him fall to the back of the field by Turn 1 before his race-ending accident trying to overtake a group of cars around the outside of Turn 5.
After reflecting on the weekend, Piastri said there were clear lessons to be learned.
“I think qualifying, the lesson from that was more just around a street circuit is going to bite hard if you try a bit too hard,” he said. “I think qualifying was as simple as that.
“But I think the race, the jump start, a combination of factors I would say that kind of led to that. Then obviously the crash, I think it’s difficult to remove immediately what went on at the start from that.
“I think there’s some lessons about how I can deal with that better and just lessons on risk I guess is the best way to put it. Again, there’s nothing revolutionary that I think needs to change or that I am going to change.
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“I think for 16 of the 17 weekends what I’ve been doing has worked very well. I think if I make sure I stay focused on the things that have gone well then it will continue to go that way. Nothing revolutionary, I’m just putting it down to some mistakes.
“Obviously it looks quite dramatic because they’re all on the same weekend but nothing more than that really.”
Piastri said he did not dwell on the accidents after the Baku weekend and has his mind focused on securing a better result at this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix.
“I think it was relatively easy to move on from actually. I think in some ways because the mistakes were so obvious, you leave every weekend trying to find how you can improve. But there’s some weekends, normally the ones that go well, where it’s a bit more difficult to find where it’s possible to improve,” he said.
“But also if you don’t have a clear idea of where things went wrong then often the hardest part is finding where to start. I think when the mistakes and the consequences are so obvious it’s quite easy to find where to look. I think the reflection on that has been pretty straightforward and I feel comfortable coming back in now.
“I certainly haven’t had to dwell on it too much, the lessons are there but I’ve been able to move on from it quickly and just approach this weekend like any other weekend.”
