Oscar Piastri won’t change risk approach as he seeks bigger F1 lead

Oscar Piastri insists the retirement suffered by McLaren teammate and championship rival Lando Norris will have no bearing on his approach to the title fight.

Norris has fallen 34 points behind Piastri with nine races remaining after the Australian won last weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix while he was forced to retire with an oil leak on his McLaren.

Piastri is now viewed as the clear favourite for this year’s world title following the misfortune suffered by Norris but he is refusing to get complacent as he bids to further increase his advantage over his chief rival.

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“It’s obviously never nice to see that kind of thing [Norris’s retirement] but unfortunately it is a part of racing,” Piastri said ahead of the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.

“We’ve not really spoken about it. There’s nothing I can say that’s going to make it better. For me the approach doesn’t change. The approach I’ve had this year has worked well and for me there’s no reason to change anything now.

“The gap is bigger now but it’s still far from being comfortable and being able to change the way I go about things. So it will stay the same way.”

Piastri, who has seven victories this year to Norris’s five, added: “It should be quite straightforward. Me and the engineers are trying to get the most out of the car, the most out of myself and that doesn’t change whether you are first or last.

"You are always trying to get the best out of yourself, certainly in terms of car set-up, you are not going to make the car any slower. For me that’s not going to change. Even the approach to risk won’t change.

“I would still like to extend it even more because there’s still a long way to go and a bigger lead is always a bigger thing.”

Lando Norris not wishing bad luck on Oscar Piastri 

Meanwhile, Norris stressed that he won’t rely on “luck” to overturn his deficit to Piastri in the title race.

“I don’t look into luck and all these things,” Norris told reporters on Thursday.“There’s no point. I don’t want to be wasting my time on hoping for it or praying for it.

“I was unlucky last weekend and that’s life. It happens. It might get to the end of the year and nothing else happens.

“If I lose the championship by the amount of points that I lost at the weekend [Zandvoort] then that’s tough, that’s life andI will move on. I will come back again next year and try to do better.

“I don’t wish for bad luck for anyone else. I was unlucky that weekend and this weekend I need to try to do better. I don’t believe in those kinds of things.”