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McLaren’s Oscar Piastri during practice
Formula One championship leader Oscar Piastri said he had quickly moved on from his calamitous weekend in Azerbaijan and was focusing more on what brought him the success he had enjoyed in the season up to that point.
The McLaren driver brought an end to a run of 34 races in the points when he crashed both in qualifying and the race in Baku two weeks ago with the result that his lead over teammate Lando Norris in the drivers’ standings was cut to 25 points.
Piastri said that because his mistakes were so blindingly obvious, the lessons were easy to take on board and he was able to prepare for this weekend’s race in Singapore as normal.
“Obviously, it looks quite dramatic because they’re all on the same weekend,” the Australian told reporters on Thursday.
“Yes, the consequences were bigger and more dramatic, but the kind of process of looking through things has been the same as every weekend.
“There’s nothing revolutionary that I think needs to change, or that I am going to change. I think for 16, for 17 weekends, what I’ve been doing has worked very well.
“And I think if I make sure I stay focused on the things that have gone well, then it will continue to go that way.”
World champion Max Verstappen won his second straight race in Baku and now stands 69 points behind Piastri with seven races left in the season.
Despite Ferrari and Mercedes having been fast at the Marina Bay circuit in the past, Piastri felt the Dutch Red Bull driver would again be the biggest threat to the McLarens on Sunday.
“I think Red Bull and Max will be strong again,” he said.
“Just generally … whenever there’s been really close competition, it’s more often than not been Max.”
McLaren need 13 points from their two drivers on Sunday to secure a second consecutive constructors’ championship.
The team have consistently said that they would allow their drivers to fight for the other title and Norris reacted with heavy sarcasm when asked on Thursday whether he was worried that might change given Verstappen’s resurgence.
“I’m very concerned. Yeah,” the Englishman said. “Very worried about it, and scared, frankly. So yeah, I was happy you asked that, actually … Yeah … No.”
