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Matthew Sullivan November 6, 2025 - 1:56PM Share via Email Share on Facebook Share on Whatsapp Copied URL to clipboard codesports.com.au 'Obvious' Oscar admits to driving change F1: Oscar Piastri admits he has had to drive differently the last few races, as his title lead to teammate Lando Norris continues to diminish. Oscar Piastri has been encouraged to drive more aggressively as he aims to rediscover his mojo in a tense conclusion to the Formula One season with a championship on the line. Piastri is aiming to become Australia’s first F1 world champion since Alan Jones in 1980, but he’s now on the back foot after losing his lead in the standings at the Mexican Grand Prix. He finished fifth, while his McLaren teammate Lando Norris drove a flawless race to win and take a one-point lead from Piastri in the championship with four races remaining. Fox Sports, available on Kayo Sports, is the only place to watch every practice, qualifying session and race in the 2025 FIA Formula One World Championship™ LIVE in 4K. New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1. Piastri has gone four races without finishing on the podium and he desperately needs a strong result at this weekend’s Brazilian Grand Prix to hit back in the title fight with Norris, while Max Verstappen is looming 35 points behind the Aussie. After the race in Mexico, Piastri said he felt he needed to drive differently in the past few races — which is hardly ideal when he’s in the middle of a tight championship battle. Copied URL to clipboard Lando Norris booed in awkward scene after Mexico GP win Lando Norris received a harsh response from the audience in a post-race... “I’ve had to drive very differently the last couple of weekends, or not driven differently when I should have,” Piastri explained. “That has been a little bit strange to get my head around. I’ve been driving the same as I have all year but these last couple of weekends the car or the tyres have required a different way of driving. McLaren driver Lando Norris has a one-point lead over teammate Oscar Piastri. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo) Piastri’s comments in Mexico suggested he was struggling with his car’s set up, which is slightly different to that of Norris, who adopted McLaren’s front suspension earlier in the season. “Each car is tuned to the liking of the driver, so it is unlikely that the two cars are exactly set up the same,” Dr Sammy Diasinos, Senior Lecture in Mechanical Engineering at Macquarie University and a former F1 aerodynamics engineer for Williams and Caterham, told news.com.au. “I am very confident that McLaren will be setting up the car to what Oscar and his engineering group around him feel is best for him, or what he’s requesting. “The question is, is what he is requesting going to start changing now that he’s a bit behind? Is he going to be a little bit less conservative, a bit more aggressive with the set up that could help potentially close the gap? “Even when he was performing well, in practice he was usually a few tenths behind Lando but come qualifying, he always found that gap and made up a lot. “At the beginning of the year, I was wondering if it was a bit of a strategy as well, just to let Lando think that he was doing well, and then surprise him in qualifying and in the race with his true pace.” Oscar Piastri needs to rediscover his top pace to win the title. (Photo by Alfredo ESTRELLA / POOL / AFP) The 24-year-old’s pace has seemingly fallen off a cliff since his horror weekend in Azerbaijan when he had multiple crashes and drove into the wall for a DNF. “I can’t help but feel that probably dented his confidence,” Dr Diasinos said. Piastri had a healthy lead in the standings over Norris at Azerbaijan, but his confidence in his car seems to have dropped since then, as his mindset shifted to conversing his lead instead of continuing to drive aggressively. “It is easy to assume that with a 35-point lead, you’ve got quite a cushion, a buffer there, and perhaps you don’t have to be as aggressive as what you were before, in order to be able to maintain that lead,” Dr Diasinos said. “This season is so close, that any small change in approach, which doesn’t get you that final tenth (of a second) or final two tenths can really have a lot of consequences for the position that you finish qualifying session in or the race.” Piastr was at a loss to explain his struggles with the car in Mexico. (Photo by Hector Vivas/Getty Images) Norris is in career best form and has been blitzing qualifying, beating Piastri by half a second over one lap in qualifying at recent races — a gap Piastri simply must overturn if he is to win the championship. Rain is predicted this weekend for the Brazilian Grand Prix in Sao Paulo, but Piastri may need to go for the jugular and drive more aggressively, especially in qualifying, if he is to beat Norris and Verstappen. “From what I’ve seen so far, I assume that he’s been taking more of a cautious approach to try and maintain the lead as opposed to a more aggressive approach where at the start of the year he was more challenging for the wins, more challenging for the pole positions,” Dr Diasinos said. “Now that he is a point behind, it will be really interesting to see if his mindset changes again. If this weekend in Brazil, if he’s going to be a lot more aggressive with the way that he approaches qualifying or the way that he approaches racing to try to get back into the lead again for the championship. Max Verstappen is still a contender to win his fifth F1 championship. (Photo by Peter Fox/Getty Images) “That mindset is not just how you drive the car, but it also exists with how you set up the car. “You can make a car a little bit more compliant, which makes it easy to drive over a long distance, or you can really make it on edge. “That’s how it’s going to be fastest, but it is also what’s going to introduce the most likelihood of the an error in their driving. “There’s lots of little decisions that are getting made every weekend, which is having this impact on the result that we see. It’s all just a balancing act.” McLaren’s ‘fair’ approach could backfire It’s way too late for McLaren to pick one driver to support in the championship battle, but the papaya team’s handling of the garage dynamics may well put the team in a tricky predicament if Verstappen closes in on the championship lead. “It’s a very unique approach that we’re seeing this year from McLaren,” Dr Diasinos said. “I don’t think we’ve ever seen a team attempt to be so fair, to the point where they’re making corrections for errors, which are not the responsibility of the driver, like we saw in Monza, with the long pit stop for Lando and Oscar being asked to hand the position back. McLaren's CEO Zak Brown has been trying to keep it fair. (Photo by RONALDO SCHEMIDT / AFP) Former F1 engineer Dr Sammy Diasinos. Photo: Supplied. “I don’t think we have ever seen it being done to this extent before, which is really surprising. “My concern is that it’s OK while McLaren are the two leading cars, they can fiddle with the results like this to try and create fairness between the drivers, but there’s gonna be situations where there’s going to be cars amongst them, and they’re not going have the opportunity to do this. “We saw that in Singapore where Oscar got the slow pit stop and the first corner incident as well. “As other cars start catching up to them or racing with them, it’s going to be really hard to have that sort of equity that they’re trying to produce amongst their own two drivers.” McLaren vs Max in last four races Every point matters in the championship battle, and there are eight points up for grabs for the winner of the sprint races in Brazil and Qatar. The other two remaining races at Las Vegas and the Abu Dhabi, where it seems the championship will be decided in a thrilling season finale for the first time since 2021. Season Standings M. Verstappen L. Hamilton K. Antonelli N. Hulkenberg “I would expect McLaren would be better suited to the rest of the tracks that they are competing at just because they tend to be higher downforce tracks where aerodynamic efficiency is more important and that’s where I believe the McLaren has been really strong,” Dr Diasinos said. “The exception to that might be Las Vegas which has a lot of long straights and you can make up some of the lack of aerodynamic efficiency by running less downforce or have less drag on the car. Las Vegas is one track where you could probably mask that a little bit. More Coverage ‘Not good’: Piastri’s F1 title hopes in shambles James McKern Hamilton dumped for 20yo Aussie rookie James Phelps “But we’ve seen Max Verstappen do incredibly well São Paulo in Brazil, particularly when it’s raining. He went from last to first over a weekend there. You can never discount Max Verstappen. “But when we move to the Middle East, it’s very likely they’re going to be dry races. We know that those two tracks are very aerodynamic efficiency dependent. So I would expect those last two races, McLaren to have the edge over Red Bull.” Watch every session of the Brazil F1 Grand Prix on Fox Sports via Kayo this weekend. Join the conversation Add your comment to this story To join the conversation, please log in. Don't have an account? Join the conversation, you are commenting as More related stories ‘Not good’: Piastri’s F1 title hopes in shambles Oscar Piastri has been hit with a brutal truth bomb as he attempts to turn his form around and win the F1 drivers’ championship. F1 star, model post bizarre engagement photo Formula 1 star Charles Leclerc has shared some exciting personal news on social media – and his famous pet dog was front and centre in the announcement. Hamilton dumped for 20yo Aussie rookie Lewis Hamilton has lost one of his chief lieutenants at Ferrari to a 20-year-old Aussie in a move that will take the motorsport world by surprise. 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