Oscar Piastri: McLaren’s pace advantage “not enough to lay back”
McLaren needs to be at its “best form” amid the “tight” gaps at the front of the grid, according to China winner Oscar Piastri.
Oscar Piastri says McLaren has still got the quickest car in Formula 1 but the team’s advantage is not big enough for it to rest on its laurels.
McLaren started the 2025 season in a dominant fashion with victory in Australian Grand Prix and a 1-2 finish in China just two weeks later.
But its winning streak was abruptly ended by Red Bull in the Japanese GP last weekend, as Max Verstappen converted an unlikely pole position into a stunning lights-to-flag victory at Suzuka.
This has added another variable to the championship fight, with Verstappen now just one point behind McLaren’s Lando Norris in the drivers' standings - and Piastri a further 12 points adrift in third.
Piastri said the Suzuka race is proof that the battle at the front would be “tight the whole year”, with any mistakes from McLaren giving its rivals an opportunity for rivals to pounce.
Asked if the Woking-based squad is taking the threat of Red Bull more seriously now, the Australian said: “I don't think it changes much. I think we have the quickest car at the moment. But our advantage is not enough to be careless and kind of lay back and not execute as best as you can.
“We saw Melbourne was a very strong weekend for us, but we also got the most out of the car and both of us felt we drove very well. I think China in the Sprint—Sprint quali, Lando went on pole—and I think China and Japan have both shown that it doesn’t take much to go wrong for us not to be at the front.
“We have an advantage in the race for sure, but in qualifying you have to still be on it because the gap is not much still. As we saw in Japan, Max put in a good performance and it was enough to be better than us.
“So I think that's just another demonstration that it's going to be tight the whole year and we’ve got to be on our best form.”
While the RB21 that Verstappen drove to victory at Suzuka has developed a reputation for being tricky to drive, the handling of the MCL39 has also been described as difficult by Norris.
Asked if he echoed Norris’ feelings about the car, Piastri said: “It has its moments, yes. I think it's not a completely different car to what we had last season.
“I think there’s a lot of ideas and philosophies that are the same. But yes, it's been tricky to get all of the lap time out of it in every session, and I think we've seen that. But you know, if I had to pick out of all 10 cars on the grid right now, I'd still pretty happily be choosing ours.”
Piastri admitted that he has had to change his driving style to get the best out of the 2025 McLaren, but clarified that it’s part of his job as an F1 driver.
“I think every year you adapt to different things on the car,” he said. “I think for me the car’s not completely different to what it has been last year especially, and even the year before. It’s just faster, which is a good thing.
“But even from day to day, at Suzuka, we had a 20-kilometre headwind through Sector 1 on Friday and a 20-kilometre tailwind on Saturday, and it makes the car behave quite differently.
“So I think adapting is the name of the game in F1. And there’s some things inherently in the car that we want to try and make a bit better and make it a bit easier for us.
“I think every car you drive, you have to adapt to at least one thing because as much as we want it, I think the laws of physics stop us from having the perfect car. So you’re always going to adapt to something.”
