Mark Webber was a happy man on Sunday night in Azerbaijan.
It’s not just that he’d seen Oscar Piastri win a modern classic Azerbaijan Grand Prix. The young Aussie’s manager already knew what Piastri was capable of; his Baku victory was evidence only for those who hadn’t yet seen the potential.
It’s that Piastri won on a weekend dominated by talk of McLaren casting him in a support role for Lando Norris’s long-short championship bid.
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McLaren made the difficult — and somewhat ambiguous — call to “bias” its operations towards Norris at Piastri’s expense to try to bring title leader Verstappen into range.
Piastri was in the worse points positions because — so the narrative went — he’d only really started turning things on in the last month or so since winning July’s Hungarian Grand Prix. Norris, exhibiting greater consistency, was the man to back.
But by Sunday Piastri was mounting the top step of the podium, equalling Norris’s two-victory tally after a flawless performance to cap off a flawless weekend and casting yet more doubt on assumptions about the McLaren dynamic.
“Not bad for a number two driver,” Webber must surely have permitted himself to think as the champagne was sprayed above him.
Of course there are significant differences between Piastri’s triumph and the circumstances that led to Webber coining that immortal phrase after winning the 2010 British Grand Prix.
That year Webber had had his new front wing taken off him to replace Sebastian Vettel’s broken one, putting him at a disadvantage. The boiled-over frustration from feeling he was being sidelined to benefit his teammate carried those fateful words to the surface as he took the chequered flag.
Piastri isn’t being held back by McLaren. In fact the team even went out of its way to slow Norris’s race to help Piastri secure victory.
But in both incidents were statement-making drives at a time title focus was on their teammates.
“It was a pretty handy performance, wasn’t it,” Webber told Sky Sports. “He’s had such a great season all year, been very consistent, very quick in all conditions, and that was I think one of the best drives I’ve ever seen him pull off.”
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‘PHENOMENAL DRIVER, BRILLIANT DRIVE’
Of course Piastri arrived in the sport with considerable expectations about what he could achieve.
His junior record is sensational, comprising three championships in consecutive seasons, his Formula 3 and Formula 2 titles coming in rookie campaigns. Immediately that’s the mark of a serious talent.
But you can never be sure how even a great junior driver will transition into the pressure cooker F1 environment.
It was clear last season that Piastri was adapting well, but there were holes in his game most assumed would take at least a few seasons of experience to fill.
Not so, it turns out.
His move on Charles Leclerc to pinch the lead exhibited the killer instincts of a champion. His subsequent defensive drive was the sort you come to expect from veterans, not a driver in their second year.
It was so good that even team boss Andrea Stella was taken aback.
“I was surprised, but Oscar is always surprising us with his talent and ability,” he said, per the BBC. “Today he gave also a demonstration of his mental strength.
“He drove like a driver that has a lot of experience and has been under this kind of pressure before, who can look with one eye on the mirror and one on the braking, and he did it with great precision and pretty controlled.
“Phenomenal driver, brilliant drive.”
Webber said the quality of the opposition Piastri faced in grinding out victory — Leclerc and Sergio Pérez have the most Baku poles and most victories respectively of any driver — enhanced the quality of the drive.
“Obviously under a lot of pressure defensively, very decisive in the move itself and up against a world-class driver — Charles around here is absolutely magical, so to beat him around here is a pretty big deal,” he said.
“To pull off grands prix at a place like this, the discipline required getting the move done and then leading from the front was pretty world class, to say the least.”
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PIASTRI IS FORMULA 1’S FORM MAN
While victory in Azerbaijan was an obvious highlight of Piastri’s season, it wasn’t against the run of play.
In fact it was totally congruent with Piastri’s status as F1’s form man heading into the final third of the season.
Points over last 11 rounds (since Miami Grand Prix)
1. Oscar Piastri: 181 points
2. Max Verstappen: 177 points
3. Lando Norris: 171 points
4. Lewis Hamilton: 139 points
5. Charles Leclerc: 137 points
6. George Russell: 106 points
7. Carlos Sainz: 101 points
8. Sergio Pérez: 40 points
Effectively you can cut the season into two parts: the first five rounds, when Red Bull Racing was dominant, and everything from Miami onwards, when McLaren caught up and the series became considerably more competitive.
The above points table excludes Miami given Piastri was punted out of the race by Carlos Sainz, but he was McLaren’s better performer that weekend despite lacking the team’s season-changing performance upgrade. Only a badly timed safety car meant Norris, not him, got the shot at beating Verstappen.
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Even if we consider only the last six rounds — so Norris’s Austrian Grand Prix non-score doesn’t skew the results — the picture is the same except to highlight Verstappen’s recent decline.
Points over the last six rounds (since Austrian Grand Prix)
1. Oscar Piastri: 110 points
2. Lando Norris: 98 points
3. Charles Leclerc: 85 points
4. Lewis Hamilton: 81 points
5. Max Verstappen: 76 points
6. Carlos Sainz: 49 points
7. George Russell: 32 points
8. Sergio Pérez: 25 points
It certainly counters the idea that Piastri has only recently come on tap as a frontrunner. He’s been bubbling away for almost the entire year.
“People forget he was on fire after Saudi in the first two races,” Webber posited when asked about Piastri’s supposedly slow start to he campaign.
“There were a couple of little tricky races through there. He didn’t have the upgrade in Miami. Since Miami he’s been one of the biggest point scorers if not the biggest point scorer.”
“It’s a perception thing. He’s done an extraordinary job.”
Of course even Piastri would probably admit “little tricky races” is an understandable managerial understatement of some genuinely difficult performances — particularly in Japan, China and Spain — that showed Piastri still had work to do to close the gap to Norris on tyre management.
But notably there have been no such questions about that element of his craft since then, and with precious few exceptions Piastri has been at least a match for Norris.
“He’s arrived,” Webber said, “but keeping his feet on the ground and keeping working hard.”
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NOT BAD FOR AN EQUAL NUMBER ONE DRIVER
Performances like Azerbaijan show that Piastri’s potential is being realised into actual performances, and his scoring rate over the last 11, seven, six rounds — you name it — proves that he’s the sport’s in-form driver.
The force of his drive there left McLaren with no choice but to support him fully, even at a potential cost to Norris’s recovery through the field.
The team ordered Norris to slow down Sergio Pérez after the Mexican’s first pit stop to earn Piastri an extra lap on the medium tyre, shortening his long final stint on hards to boost his odds of making it to the finish without needing another set of tyres.
Norris duly obliged, costing himself race time to ensure Piastri could have a shot at winning the race — and to ensure McLaren had a shot at taking control of the constructors championship.
“Interestingly, it was Lando supporting Oscar and enabling Oscar’s victory thanks to driving for the team and driving to support his teammate,” Stella said, per ESPN.
“It just shows we are approaching racing as one team, and we had conversations before the weekend where we would bias one way or the other, but we approach every weekend … trying to maximise the result for the team.
“If one driver needs help, we will do it and the other driver will do it.”
It’s an irony not lost on the paddock after weeks of talk about Piastri needing to support Norris, and the timing couldn’t have been more awkward.
With the constructors championship taking care of itself, the pressure has been mounting for the team to turn the screws on Verstappen, who’s now on a seven-race run without victory.
It can only back Norris, with arithmetic making it a simple choice. He’s the only one with a shot of winning the title without needing other results to go his way, and it’s not as if he’s in bad form — his drive in Azerbaijan, from 15th to fourth ahead of Verstappen, was also excellent.
“I think I said already that we have two number one drivers, effectively,” Stella continued. “Having two number one drivers mean we approach things, first of all, in the interest of the team, and the interest of the team is to win the constructors championship and also the drivers championship.
“Lando was in the most favourable position before Baku, I think he still is in the most favourable position now, so naturally we would have supported Lando.”
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But his Azerbaijan qualifying disaster has narrowed his path considerably.
He needed to be outscoring Verstappen by just under seven points per round. While his recovery was mighty, he put only three points on the labouring Dutchman at the weekend.
The maths have therefore been revised up, with Norris now needing 8.4 points per round to seal the deal — that is, he needs to win all seven grands prix with the fastest lap and also win all three sprints.
“They need to have a perfect end to the year,” Verstappen acknowledged in Baku.
Of course if Red Bull Racing continues to underperform, Norris’s path will widen again, but it puts additional pressure on McLaren to ensure Piastri is between him and Verstappen.
The lengthening title odds make it more important than ever for Piastri to play the team game.
It’s almost certainly inevitable the Australian will be deployed this year to boost Norris’s points. It might even happen more than once. While the team is ruling out forcing Piastri to give up wins, if the situation requires it as the title race heads towards a crunch, swapping him out of the lead would surely be put back on the table.
It’s what makes performance like Piastri’s Azerbaijan victory so important.
Against the backdrop of intense scrutiny on McLaren’s use of team orders, Piastri’s Azerbaijan performance ensures his contribution won’t be overlooked.
He’s operating at a championship-contending level, even if he’s not in championship contention this season.
These aren’t the performance of a number two driver.
Source Agencies
