Piastri's cracked tyre management and quali pace, now he's ready for an F1 title fight

There's a strange time dilation that comes with the length of Formula 1's calendars these days, aside from the stat inflation and the ubiquity of races on what feels like most weekends for nine months of the year. Case in point: it feels inconceivable that Oscar Piastri is only in his third season of F1, and yet it feels completely right that he's just celebrated his 50th grand prix start. When I started watching, you'd only hit that tally in the first few rounds of your fourth year...

Piastri has reached that position of omnipresence that only the top racers really achieve in F1, which perhaps accounts for the surprise that he's only been in the game for two and a bit years; the sort of omnipresence that will keep a driver sealed to the grid for the next 10-plus seasons, no matter who the employer. You could probably name six or seven drivers currently of that much-envied status, a few youngsters who may yet join the meal ticket queue, with the rest likely to disappear over the next few seasons.

Despite Piastri's emergence in F1 and his abrupt demonstration that he was more than well equipped to handle F1's rigours, he's largely faced two main points of criticism across his two full years in the championship. The first concerns his qualifying pace; across 2023 and 2024, he just seemed to cede that final tenth or two to Lando Norris, which made his wait for a 'proper' pole position linger into the start of 2025.

The second bone of contention related to Piastri's tyre management skills where, again, his approach to a stint would look promising before invariably tailing off as he couldn't quite blend speed with coaxing the tyres through a stint. Norris, already with four years of experience in whispering sweet nothings to Pirelli tyres, had a clear advantage in this area.

It was said that if Piastri could address those two points, then he would be ready to challenge for honours. The evidence of 2025's opening four rounds is this: he has, and he is. Piastri is not only ready to fight for a title - he's there already.

The Melburnian had a consistent shortfall to Norris over one lap last season - it was 20-4 in Norris' favour in regular qualifying sessions over 2024. There might have been the odd race last year where Piastri was just stronger over the course of the weekend - Jeddah, Monaco, and Belgium come to mind - and there were others where the Australian and Norris were almost inseparable. But in the majority of cases, Piastri might have just fallen a smidgen short of Norris on a Q3 lap, or lacked a few tenths per lap on a medium tyre stint, or something else infinitesimally small that ended up swinging it in the Briton's favour.

Piastri never needed to venture far to get level with Norris. He didn't need to make wholesale changes to his driving, but rather focus on the little tweaks that turn a qualifying lap good enough for second into a pole time, or just minimises slip a little bit over a tyre management stint and focuses on getting more out of the corner exits. By the end of last year, the idea of a 'complete' Piastri was tantalisingly close.

Last year Piastri saw fine margins split him from team-mate Norris

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

And if Piastri hadn't slipped off the road at the Australian Grand Prix, he'd be leading the championship. Sure, some of that might be helped slightly by Norris' horror show in the China sprint race, but given the deficit is only three points and Piastri seems the more upwardly mobile of the two drivers, the order could easily swap in Jeddah.

The much-vaunted improvements in qualifying and race stint management has emerged; Piastri got the pole duck off his back in China, and clinched a second pole position in Bahrain to double his tally. And, from starting at the front, he's had plenty of opportunity to simply manage his stints without the need to fight too hard with other drivers in the pack.

Managing tyres out front? That's child's play. What about doing it while battling other drivers? About that; Piastri has shown a bit more gumption in these scenarios, although it's a little harder to extrapolate from the sample set we have this year as the races where he's been behind are in situations where general degradation has been a little lower. He kept Norris on his toes in Australia before slipping off the road, matching him for pace across the opening intermediate stint despite the degradation of the tyre against the drying track.

Much of Piastri's growth in qualifying has come from his willingness to listen to his car's demands. Rather than try to brake late and wrangle it into corners, Piastri is patient on the entry and ensures he's there to pick up the throttle at the moment the car bites the apex

Suzuka was a bit more inconclusive, as wear was incredibly low - but Piastri was just that smidgen quicker than Norris on the hard-tyre stint, enough to cast down the team's decision not to swap between drivers.

Finally, Bahrain laid bare a further shift in the narrative: that the MCL39 suits Piastri much more than Norris. In truth, the probable difference is miniscule, and on a different day Norris might have nailed his qualifying lap and been less downcast on Saturday night. But Norris does rather fuel the narrative here that he's just not able to get along with the new McLaren, while Piastri takes a far more grin-and-bear-it approach to boxing with the fast-but-flighty papaya machine.

"I’ve been happy with how I’ve driven all season so far," Piastri asserted after his Bahrain win. "Maybe not all the results have been exactly what I wanted, but I think this weekend has definitely been the result I wanted.

The Australian didn't put a wheel wrong on his way to Bahrain GP victory, while Norris openly admitted he is struggling

Photo by: Andrej Isakovic - AFP - Getty Images

"Obviously the car is in a great place. It still has its moments where it bites, but for a lot of the time it’s an incredible car to drive and clearly very quick. So yeah, very proud of the work we’re doing. This has been a track that’s not been kind to us in the past, so to have a weekend like we have had this weekend is a really meaningful result – outside of the victory."

Just on that bite: much of Piastri's growth in qualifying has come from his willingness to listen to his car's demands. Rather than try to brake late and wrangle it into corners, Piastri is patient on the entry and ensures he's there to pick up the throttle at the moment the car bites the apex. He's not often the quickest through the entry to the corner, but he's certainly made up for it by the time he's left it. And Norris has alluded to this before: the McLaren doesn't want to be pushed into making the corners - it wants to be led gently by the hand and then dragged out at full throttle.

This is why Piastri has enjoyed greater consistency in qualifying: because he seems to understand how to get the best out of it. It's not that Norris doesn't necessarily know this - as mentioned, he's picked up on the McLaren's traits and how it precludes him from making the most of his own strengths. But he hasn't yet formulated a way to drive around those quirks repeatably; Piastri has already included this in his oeuvre.

There's time for Norris to battle his own inner demons and find the form he ended 2024 with, but managing this would be none too soon: Piastri's arrived. And he's ready to win something.

Is Piastri now the F1 title favourite?

Photo by: Peter Fox - Getty Images