Helmut Marko believes that Oscar Piastri is suffering from ‘problems’ as he looks to get his World Championship bid back on track in Mexico City. Both Lando Norris and Max Verstappen have outscored the Australian in each of the last four Grand Prix weekends.
Piastri was fourth-fastest in the first free practice session of the weekend, albeit four-tenths of a second behind Charles Leclerc in P1, with nine rookies on the track. In FP2, he was down in 12th place, over six-tenths slower than team-mate and title rival Norris.
“He was clearly behind Norris, Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko told Sky Germany. “It looks like he has problems at the moment. But it’s only Friday, maybe they can fix that. But first, let’s see if we can solve our own problems, and then we’ll look at the competition.”
Throughout the first two-thirds of the season, Piastri was nothing short of flawless, rattling off seven Grand Prix victories. However, since suffering an uncharacteristic DNF in Baku, a switch was flipped. Most worrying was his showing in Austin, where he lacked the pace of the cars in front of him, finishing fifth in a weekend to forget.
Delving into the Aussie’s struggles, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella backed his driver to bounce back. “I think it’s two-fold,” he explained. “Clearly, when we look at the last four races – drivers, team – there’s more that we could have done.
“There’s more that we could have extracted. And this is not only Oscar. This is Lando, this is Andrea, this is the entire team. We could have done a little bit better. At the same time, circuits like Austin are pretty unique circuits where you have very low grip and the tyres don’t grain, and you can wear the tyres and they still work.
For the latest breaking stories and headlines, sign up to our Daily Express F1 newsletter, or join our WhatsApp community here.
“And I think this is a regime in which Oscar… he’s relatively young as a Formula 1 driver. And certainly, his strength is that as soon as he spots something he can do better, he improves at the speed of light.”
Addressing the United States Grand Prix disaster specifically, Stella continued: “The conditions of Austin are something that he understood that he could have driven in a slightly different way.
“He got it. The next time we have the same situation, he will do it. It’s part of the development of a driver, which is the reason why, actually, despite being so young, he is leading the championship. He understands, he processes, he learns.”
