Oscar Piastri's recent loss of form: What it means and what it doesn't

Oscar Piastri last won a race in Zandvoort, and at the time, one can almost claim that the world was a different place. If you asked anyone who their pick was to win the world championship, the only name they said was the Australian.

At the end of the F1 Dutch GP, Oscar Piastri was 34 points ahead of Lando Norris and 104 points ahead of Max Verstappen. In the 2025 title battle, the driver had made a significant jump in the level of his performance.

He wasn't at a substantial level below his teammate, like he was in 2023 and 2024; he was more consistent as well, but more than anything else, he had a silent, steely determination about him that made him stand out in the battle.

Fast forward five races, and everything has been turned upside down. Oscar Piastri is not the championship leader anymore. The gap at the top of the championship has shrunk in a manner that not many would have expected, especially after what we'd seen at the start of the season.

So, what happened? What is going on with Oscar Piastri? There are a lot of claims going around, but it's probably worth looking through the clutter to see the real picture.

In this feature, we take a look at what the driver's decline means and, more importantly, what it doesn't.

Oscar Piastri's loss of form

What it means

Not much to do with Max Verstappen

The first thing that's important to understand here is that the drastic reduction of the gap to Max Verstappen is not necessarily something that's got much to do with where Oscar Piastri is right now in terms of performance. The off-weekend in Baku was a strange one for Oscar, but it's not necessarily what has been the part that has raised alarm.

Max Verstappen has gone on his supreme run, which is something that is arguably independent of what Piastri is going through in terms of his performance.

Lando Norris is finally comfortable in the car

A part of Lando Norris' 2025 F1 season that seems to have gone under the radar is the fact that the British driver spent the first half of the season complaining about how he just didn't feel comfortable with the car. Norris' first half of the season was arguably a bit uncharacteristic in the manner in which he made quite a few errors in qualifying, something that wasn't something he was associated with.

To add to this, there has been an implicit manner in which the British driver has leveled up in the second half, where he takes every race as it comes.

You combine these factors, and you take into consideration the fact that Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris have been neck and neck throughout the season, then things start to make sense.

The eye-opening gap of the last two races

Finally, and probably the most important detail that seems to have been missed is that the only races where the gaps between the two drivers have been alarming are Austin and Mexico.

Before that, the races in Monza, Singapore, and Baku didn't feature a major gulf in the performance of the two drivers.

This is also why it is important to look back at the 2024 season for reference, because both Mexico and Austin were the races last season where Oscar Piastri had disastrous outings.

The Australian had absolutely shambolic weekends in both races in 2024 as well.

In Mexico, he was knocked out in Q1, while in Austin, he was more than half a second slower than Lando Norris in Grand Prix qualifying.

This also adds currency to Andrea Stella's claim that the Australian is not comfortable in the track conditions offered by both Austin and Mexico.

What it doesn't!

McLaren's 'strategic sabotage'

One of the major issues with the lack of a wall between the fans and the teams/drivers is that we've reached a point where conspiracy theories run rampant. Throughout the season, McLaren has batted away accusations of favoring one driver over the other from both sides.

The recent drop in form from Piastri has led to questions again, and this time it's about the team sabotaging the Aussie to favor the Brit.

To counter such an argument, all one needs to do is look at the second half of the season and see how McLaren is not in a position to try and do such a thing.

With Max Verstappen chomping away at the lead after every race, the Woking-based squad is in no position to do such a thing. As is often said by many experienced pundits in F1, if McLaren wanted to favor one driver over the other, it would have done so by now.

Oscar Piastri 'never being that good'

The second argument is being made by the critics of the Australian. There have been claims made that Oscar Piastri was never that good. A lot of it was down to Lando Norris struggling with the car, and once that has been fixed, it does appear that the Brit is starting to take over.

Such a claim is not necessarily true because since the race in Zandvoort, there have been five races, out of which two tracks appear to be bogey tracks for the Australian.

Oscar Piastri has been very competitive against Lando Norris in the other three, and the gap between the two has been around a tenth on the other tracks.

There's no denying that there's a shift in momentum in favor of Lando Norris, and he has more or less made the most of it. However, it's also safe to say that some of the claims made about the Australian are exaggerated at best.

Edited by Charanjot Singh Kohli