Piastri not fazed by F1 championship lead as race wins are the bigger focus

Oscar Piastri remains intent on not getting carried away now that he is leading the Formula 1 championship for the first time in his short career. 

The McLaren driver leads the standings by 10 points having won three of the previous four grands prix including the last two in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

That is despite a poor season-opener in Melbourne, where for much of the race Piastri trailed Lando Norris in a McLaren 1-2 but eventually finished ninth after spinning off in the latter stages. 

The 24-year-old, who is only in his third season, said ahead of this weekend’s Miami Grand Prix: "Winning the races is what is exciting at the moment.

"I think the championship lead is nice, but I think I said after Saudi, I'm much more proud and satisfied of the work and the reasons behind why I'm leading the championship than actually the fact that I am leading the championship.   

“Especially given that Melbourne didn't go very well from a points point of view, I think it went well as far as execution goes, but considering I started with a bit of a deficit and I've pulled it back, I think that's kind of the part that I'm enjoying the most, is the reasons why we're leading the championship.”   

Oscar Piastri, McLaren

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

Piastri is now considered the favourite for this year’s crown, despite that tag belonging to Norris at the start of the year.

But since the Briton’s win from pole in Melbourne, his form has faltered as Norris has struggled to get to grips with the MCL39.

Piastri believes this isn’t down to a particular style of driving that the McLaren car favours, instead it’s about working to extract the most from the car on any given circuit. 

“The car is an evolution from what we had last year, there's some things that are different, but there's a lot of things that still do the same thing as last season,” he added.

“From my side, I feel like I have taken a step forward across the board. I think there's not been one specific thing that I tried to work on from last year, I've just been trying to find those last hundredths of a second, wherever you can.  

“At the moment that's been making a difference, I've still lost out on a few poles by a few hundredths of a second, so I've still got some more digging to do, but I think that's been the big difference for me so far.”   

That difference has seen Piastri outqualify Norris on three out of five grands prix weekends in 2025, while the Briton has just one victory to his team-mate’s three.

The other grand prix was won in Japan by Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who is third in the championship and 12 points behind Piastri.