Oscar Piastri responds to fan theories that McLaren are sabotaging him

Oscar Piastri has rejected theories that McLaren are sabotaging his chances of winning this year’s F1 drivers’ championship amid his poor run of form.

Piastri lost the lead of the championship following another difficult weekend in Mexico City, where he could only finish fifth, over 40 seconds behind teammate Lando Norris.

While the gap between the two drivers is only one point heading into the Sao Paulo Grand Prix this weekend, the momentum is firmly on Norris’ side.

Piastri hasn’t beaten Norris in a grand prix since the Dutch Grand Prix in the summer. His lack of pace has sparked wild speculation among fans that McLaren are favouring the British driver.

Even Max Verstappen’s father, Jos, questioned Piastri’s mysterious loss of speed.

Speaking on Thursday at Interlagos, Piastri firmly refuted claims that he was being held back by his team.

“Easy first question,” Piastri replied. “No, it’s not the case [that there’s favouritism].

“You know, I think the last couple of weekends have been a little bit more tricky, but we’ve got pretty clear answers on why that’s the case. There’s not really too many mysteries on what’s kind of happened.

“I think there’s some questions of kind of why some differences have cropped up in terms of how I need to drive and stuff like that, but there’s, yeah, everything is explainable. So there’s definitely none of that going on.”

Piastri explains poor run 

After his win at Zandvoort, Piastri had built up a 34-point lead over his teammate. He finished just behind Norris at Monza, and one place behind in Singapore.

He endured the worst weekend of his F1 career at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, jumping the start and crashing out on Lap 1. 

However, more concerning were his lack of pace relative to Norris in Austin and Mexico City.

McLaren have since suggested that Piastri’s struggles were linked to his driving style on low-grip track surfaces.

“I think Baku was obviously a bad weekend, but for extremely different reasons … It was just a messy weekend from start to finish, but ultimately the pace was pretty good, I was just trying a bit too hard,” Piastri explained.

“Austin and Mexico were quite different in that I actually feel like I’ve executed reasonably well, but the lap time has just been not there and I think we’ve got some kind of evidence as to why it’s not been there, but I think the question as to why some things have not been working in the last couple of weekends and why some things have been, that part I’m not sure we’ll ever know the answer to.

“Knowing that there’s a difference is the biggest thing. So I don’t think, you know, Baku you could argue yes, there was some other things that may be corrected, but I think in Mexico and Austin it’s just been about lacking performance and trying to find out where to find it.”