Piastri urges calm as Verstappen’s title charge gathers pace

SERIES leader Oscar Piastri has called for a calm review of his recent frustrating form and rejected calls for McLaren to prioritise one driver after he finished fifth in Sunday’s US GP.

- 

The 24-year-old Australian, without a win in four Formula One races since the Dutch GP in August, admitted concern over both his qualifying and race pace.

“I think it is very important wherever you go to get qualifying right and today I think race pace could have saved you ~ but I didn’t have that either,” he said.

“So, obviously, it’s something I want to work on. Apart from Baku, this has been the first weekend where I have felt it has been a real letdown.

“It's been subpar before, but I felt it was pretty good so I’ve obviously got some things to try and understand from this weekend. It was clearly not all about qualifying. It was really difficult to get into a rhythm in any way,”

Asked about the prospect of McLaren abandoning their “papaya rules” system of supporting both drivers equally and instead choosing to back one, Piastri was against the idea.