Piastri surprised: ‘I didn’t expect Verstappen to fight back so quickly’
Verstappen is back
After the race at Zandvoort, the championship seemed all but decided. Piastri was over a hundred points ahead of Verstappen and seemed only to have to beat his teammate. But since Monza, Red Bull has found a new form and Verstappen won three of the last four Grands Prix. The gap is now only forty points, and that’s five races before the end.
“The form he has shown since Monza has been a bit of a surprise,” Piastri now admits. “He showed what is in that car earlier in the season, but there were also big dips in between. Now all of a sudden he is consistent and super strong. He’s back in contention faster than I expected.”
Piastri keeps a cool head
Still, the young Australian says he is not worried. “The lead has narrowed a bit, but I’d rather be in the lead than the other way around,” he says. “There’s no reason to worry. I just have to keep doing what I always do: get the most out of myself, the car and the team.”
The 24-year-old McLaren driver had a difficult weekend in Austin, where he crashed in the sprint race and hit his teammate Lando Norris at the start of the main race. The Mexican Grand Prix offers him a chance to put his house in order – although he knows that Verstappen is usually unbeatable at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. The Dutchman has already won there five times.
Verstappen: ‘Positive pressure’
Verstappen himself calls his comeback “a pleasant surprise.” “To be honest, halfway through the season I didn’t expect us to still be competing for the title,” he says. “But now that we are back in it, it feels like positive pressure. We have to be perfect, make no mistakes, but that’s what makes it fun. It’s better to race a fast car than to chase it.”
Header photo: Red Bull Contentpool
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