Oscar Piastri is leading the drivers’ championship for the first time, but the McLaren driver’s approach on track hasn’t changed despite being the title favorite.
You never forget your first time: Oscar Piastri is currently the leader of the drivers’ championship. Being a title favorite (at least “for now” — we’re only at the sixth race, after all) hasn’t gone to his head.
On the contrary, the Australian is keeping his feet firmly on the ground. “Winning races is what excites me the most at the moment. Being in the lead of the championship is nice. But after Saudi Arabia I’m prouder and more satisfied with the work and the reasons why I’m leading the championship rather than just being in the lead,” he said during Thursday’s media day at the Miami GP.
Reflecting on the Australian GP, the McLaren driver said: “Especially considering that Melbourne didn’t go well in terms of points. It went well execution-wise, but considering I started with a small deficit and managed to recover it, I think that’s the part I like most — the reasons why we’re leading the championship.”
After a strong start to the season, Lando Norris began making some mistakes, which his teammate used to his advantage. Piastri believes it’s a matter of how the car adapts to certain tracks.
“The car is an evolution of last year’s. Some things are different, but a lot has stayed the same as last season,” he added. “For my part, I feel I’ve taken a step forward. I don’t think there was a specific area I worked on compared to last year. I just tried to find those last few tenths of a second, wherever possible.”
With honesty, Piastri admitted that this is “what made the difference,” explaining how he lost “a couple of poles by a few hundredths of a second. I still need to work on that a bit, but I think that’s been the big difference for me so far.”
In three out of five race weekends, Piastri has outperformed Norris, collecting three wins versus one for his McLaren teammate.
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