Oscar Piastri was left rueing a mistake-riddled Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend after the Formula 1 championship leader crashed out on the opening lap.
Piastri locked up into the Turn 4 barrier after an already poor start, as the McLaren driver dropped from ninth to last having stopped at race start trying to rectify his jumping of the lights.
But all weekend Piastri hasn’t had it easy. He failed to complete much of FP1 due to a power unit issue, he finished 12th in FP2 after clipping the Turn 15 wall, and although he was third in final practice, it was still messy as Piastri had slides at Turns 1 and 4.
That all carried into qualifying as Piastri secured ninth after crashing in Q3 and his incident the following day ended a 34-race points-scoring streak for the 24-year-old.
“There’s not been anything that’s different and I think for me that’s – it depends how you want to look at that, but for me, if I felt like I was in a completely different headspace then it’s kind of easier to blame it on that and also a problem to rectify,” said Piastri.
Oscar Piastri, McLaren
Photo by: Jayce Illman / Getty Images
“But this weekend’s felt like any other weekend. Just unfortunately there’s been far too many mistakes from start to finish.
“Every single session has been messy. So, yeah, just trying to clean that up is the important thing for the future.”
It leaves Piastri with a 25-point advantage over title rival and team-mate Lando Norris, who failed to take full advantage as he only finished seventh having struggled as well.
Piastri is therefore not going to panic after a poor weekend, as he pointed out how rare it is for him to make so many mistakes ahead of the final seven rounds of the 2025 campaign.
“Obviously, you’re never going to feel amazing after a weekend like this but, ultimately, I felt like the pace has still been good this weekend and I think it’s rare that I have so many executional errors,” added Piastri.
“So, very much focused on putting that behind me. I would be much more concerned if these errors were because I was trying to make up time or do things like that. So, I think they should be, obviously being costly errors, things that can be very, very easily rectified.”
The Azerbaijan GP was ultimately won by reigning, four-time world champion Max Verstappen, who added to his victory in Monza at the previous race.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Andy Hone/ LAT Images via Getty Images
It means Verstappen is now 69 points behind Piastri, therefore the Red Bull driver isn’t completely out of the fight, especially when his team has vastly improved across the last two rounds.
“I’m not going to rule him out,” said Piastri of Verstappen. “But I’m honestly not too concerned with that, I’m just trying to bounce back from this weekend and put in the best performances that I can.
“I know that if I get back to where I know I can be then I’ll be more than okay. So that’s what I’m going to focus my energy on.”
