Piastri on how being “laser-sharp” on details has lifted one-lap F1 pace

Ever since Oscar Piastri made his Formula 1 debut for McLaren two seasons ago, it’s become almost a cliche to say that the main factor separating him from team-mate Lando Norris is his qualifying performance. A bald view of the statistics would appear to bear that out: in 2023 Norris outqualified Piastri for grands prix 15-7, in 2024 that gap widened to 20-4 – with the result that, barring a few outliers, Piastri spent most of his time behind Norris on track.

A captive narrative has emerged that he hasn’t yet nailed the art of bringing his tires into the ‘sweet spot’ which enables Piastri to extract maximum performance from his car over a single lap in qualifying. As a result, say the detractors, he pushes too hard in races and doesn’t get the best out of his tires there either.

But F1 is a game of small margins and Piastri attributes his strong start to the 2025 season to a broader spread of factors, including being “laser-sharp” on the small details which create marginal gains.

In his home race, the season opener in Australia, Piastri qualified within a tenth of a second of his polesitting team-mate and was running closely enough to Norris over the opening stint to suggest over the radio that the team ought to order a swap. Ultimately he dropped back after going wide over the Turn 6 curb, then lost time to an off-track excursion when the rain returned, but fought his way back into the top 10.

Oscar Piastri, McLaren, Yuki Tsunoda, RB F1 Team

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

The following weekend in China, at a circuit on which he’d struggled the previous season, Piastri put his MCL39 on pole and won – while Norris was relatively scruffy in qualifying and didn’t look like mounting a serious challenge in the grand prix. While two grands prix represents a small sample set, Piastri was clear when asked about this apparent improvement that it wasn’t just down to scrutinising lap times and tire temperatures.

“It’s not necessarily as detailed as that, but it was and still is about all the little things,” he said.

“Even in the two qualifyings this year we’ve seen it’s been decided by very small margins. I think last year I was often on the wrong end of those small margins.

“So it’s about trying to, in some ways, look at all those numbers, all the different things, how you manage the tyres, whether you get a slipstream or not, all kinds of little things that add up and might not look like much. But when you add them all together it’s the difference between, in a lot of cases now, first and second.

“Obviously an incredibly important part of the weekend now is qualifying on pole.

Oscar Piastri, McLaren

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

“So, yes, it’s different everywhere you go, but I think it’s just being about laser-sharp on all the little things. Obviously driving well and being confident with what you’re doing is the most important, but I feel like we’re all on that level that any little extra bit you can get is where the difference is.”

Piastri spoke about having “some things” he had wanted to work on in Melbourne specifically, based on experience from the past two years, and that this had boosted his competitiveness there. But China was a venue where there was more significant room for improvement.

Last year Shanghai returned to the calendar for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic forced the race’s cancellation in 2020. The Chinese track is unusual in that front-end performance of the car is more of a limiting factor than the rear: the opening snail-shaped complex of corners and the fast exit onto the back straight put high stresses through the front-left tire.

On top of that, last year the organisers painted the track surface for cosmetic reasons, and it proved horrendously slippery. Piastri qualified seven places behind Norris in the sprint and labored to eighth place in the grand prix.

“I think I said in the pre-season this year that I didn’t feel like there was necessarily a hole left in my weaknesses as a driver,” said Piastri.

Oscar Piastri, McLaren

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

“It was about just making sure that the dips along the way were filled in. Obviously it’s been a very small sample size, but I’ve been happy that, especially on one track that I struggled at a lot, the performance was so different 12 months later. I think just trying to maintain that level of performance is what’s going to be important.

“Some of the limitations in China are quite specific, especially with how damaging it is to the front tires. I had some question marks on whether it was just the track or the tyres behaved in a way that suited me more naturally [in 2025] but, after analyzing the weekend, I don’t think it was just a pleasant coincidence that it was a strong weekend. I think it was down to a lot of good preparation.

“I don’t know if that’s still working. But I think for me, analyzing that weekend gave me probably even more confidence than what I gained during the weekend, or added more on top of that.”

The elephant in the room, particularly so far as McLaren is concerned since it has to manage the relationship between its two drivers, is whether Piastri can now mount a championship challenge to Norris. After the disappointment of Australia, finishing second in the Chinese sprint and winning the grand prix lifted Piastri to fourth in the standings, 10 points behind Norris.

While this may seem to be a small gap given the ebb and flow of competition, it never pays to fall too far behind at the beginning of a season – last year McLaren only really came on song after a car upgrade at the Miami Grand Prix, by which time Max Verstappen had built a margin he was able to defend against Norris over the remaining races. And in this cause, of course, Norris wasn’t aided by McLaren appearing to dither over whether to prioritise him over Piastri.

“Of course I want to try and reverse that gap that we have,” said Piastri, “but with 22 races to go it would be a pretty stressful year if you were worrying about that gap already.

Lando Norris, McLaren

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

“Yes, they can be won and lost at the start of the year, but they can also be won and lost at the end of the year. The first six races are just as important as the last six.

“I’ve had plenty of championships myself where you look at the gaps and where you’ve lost points and stuff like that – and you generally don’t really look at where in the year they came, you just look at the fact that you did have points that you lost through the season at some point.

“So I think those kind of weekends where you maximise the performance, that is what it is all about.”