Oscar Piastri didn’t last one lap in Baku. His title hopes look as strong as ever

Lando Norris was not fooling anyone. Asked whether his seventh-place finish in Sunday’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix was an “opportunity missed” in terms of the title race, the McLaren driver frowned.

“I don’t know why everyone says that,” he replied. “I did the best I could yesterday [in qualifying] and today [in the race]. The opportunities are there every weekend. Every race I didn’t win was an ‘opportunity missed’. Of course, today I wanted more, but today I couldn’t have done any more.”

You could understand Norris’s frustration, of course. But to claim this was no more of an opportunity missed than any other race in which he does not gain maximum points was giving it more topspin than a Carlos Alcaraz forehand.

The fact is Oscar Piastri – Norris’s team-mate and championship rival – does not crash every weekend. In fact, the Australian has spent an entire season not crashing. For some reason, which we are yet to understand, the Australian was more Mr Bean than Jack Brabham in Baku.

After clipping the wall during a “messy” practice session on Friday and crashing heavily in qualifying on Saturday, Piastri fared even worse in the grand prix itself.

First, he false-started, which would have incurred a five-second penalty had he not followed that up by getting bogged down by his car’s “anti-stall”, dropping to the back of the field, before crashing into the barriers at turn five as he tried to fight his way back.

Oscar Piastri watches the race after crashing in Baku.Credit: Getty Images

It was absolutely extraordinary. In the space of one minute, Piastri had completely imploded, handing Norris a golden opportunity to eat into his 31-point deficit in the title race. Norris failed to capitalise, finishing exactly where he started in seventh place.

That was not all his fault. Another pit-stop blunder by McLaren cost him at least two places, with Norris spending the last 10 laps of the race stuck behind Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson and Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda, when he should have been out ahead of them.

But Norris also has to shoulder his share of the blame. He should have qualified higher. And he made mistakes in the race, too. He was caught napping at the restart following Piastri’s crash, and was too late on the throttle, allowing Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc the opportunity to ease past him on the straight.

While Red Bull’s Max Verstappen raced like it was 2023, utterly dominant at the front, winning by 14 seconds from Mercedes’ George Russell, with Williams’ Carlos Sainz a brilliant, crowd-pleasing third, Norris spent the afternoon stuck in traffic.

Max Verstappen enjoyed a great day in Baku.Credit: AP

McLaren tried to offset his strategy, keeping him out for an extra 10 laps after most of his competitors had stopped, only to botch his pit stop when he did finally come in on lap 37 of 51. The idea was to bring him out ahead of the battle between Lawson and Leclerc, and to also undercut Tsunoda, who Red Bull had also kept out on a long first stint. Instead, he came out behind all three of them. Although Norris managed to get past Leclerc with 10 laps remaining, he could find no way past the other two.

Andrea Stella, the McLaren team principal, argued that the slow stop did not make much difference to the outcome. “The pit stop itself didn’t make any difference because we would have ended up pretty much in the area of Leclerc,” the Italian claimed afterwards. “For me, the most important takeaway was that the car wasn’t fast enough.”

Anthony Davidson saw it differently on British broadcaster Sky Sports F1. “Lando should have come out ahead of Lawson and Tsunoda,” he argued, “and with clean air he would have then been able to hunt [Mercedes’ Kimi] Antonelli down. He could have had fourth place today.”

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Whether he could or could not, the upshot is that, with seven races remaining, Norris still finds himself 25 points – a full race win – behind Piastri at the top of the standings. He may not get a better opportunity this season to take a huge bite out of his teammate. That said, the Baku weekend did raise questions about Piastri’s temperament. We will see in the heat of Singapore in two weeks’ time whether he is back to his usual cool, calm, and collected self.

We will also discover whether Verstappen can drag himself further back into the title race.

That is two wins in a row now for the four-time world champion, who moved to 69 points behind Piastri in the standings. Yes, both Monza and Baku suited the Red Bull. Yes, we will be back to more McLaren-friendly tracks soon. And yes, Verstappen pooh-poohed the idea when it was put to him. “It’s seven rounds left – 69 points is a lot,” he pointed out. “So I personally don’t think about it. I just go race by race.”

One thing is for sure, McLaren will not want any more weekends like this.

Telegraph, London

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