Why Piastri's win could also cause headaches at McLaren

''YES!!!'' For the first time, there was some form of a burst of joy there from Oscar Piastri. The Australian, who seems able to hide his emotions, still had some pent-up excitement after his win in Baku. That is however not surprisingly. The McLaren driver had just driven the race of his life, got past Charles Leclerc in magisterial fashion and, perhaps he managed to keep him behind even more impressively. After that brief outburst, however, Piastri was soon able to calmly analyse what happened and thank his team again.

It shows how strong Piastri is mentally. He is only in his second year in Formula 1 and is already competing for wins, helping his team towards earning a first constructors' title since 1998 and he is able to get closer and closer to Max Verstappen himself. It bodes well for the future, although it is also causing McLaren a headache right now.

Why winning Piastri could be a problem

Of course, McLaren will be happy with the ever-stronger Piastri. This way, McLaren as a team are scoring more and more points and the world title is getting closer and closer for the team. Still, the team would have secretly hoped that Lando Norris had delivered a weekend like this, in order to further catch up with Verstappen.

With seven Grands Prix to go, Norris is still number two in the championship. In Baku, Norris also gained points on Verstappen again, but the Briton only gained three points on the Dutchman. Verstappen still leads the Briton with a wide gap of 59 points.

Verstappen still sees Norris as his biggest rival. Asked by GPblog, Verstappen stated: ''Yeah, well, the gap is still decent [to Piastri], I would say. So, of course, at the moment it's still just Lando.'' Yet Piastri is getting closer and closer. After his victory, Piastri is only 32 points behind Norris and therefore 91 points behind Verstappen.

McLaren have put themselves into this situation. The team want to win in the 'McLaren way', and they don't want to win at any cost and thus sacrifice Oscar. If Lando wants to win the title, he himself will have to qualify better and perform better in the race.

Horner points to McLaren's problems

It is a situation Christian Horner also knows all too well. The Red Bull Racing team principal therefore stated after the race in Baku that 'that other guy', referring to Piastri, is giving McLaren headaches. ''He's winning races and he's doing a very good job. It was like when Daniel Ricciardo came to us, he was clearly supposed to be the number two to Sebastian Vettel. And he won three races that year to Sebastian's none. Sometimes it causes you a headache like that.''

Horner himself is not in that situation with someone like Max Verstappen, where it is clear that a driver like Sergio Perez knows his place quickly. ''Lando Norris, they're paying five times what they paid Oscar. So I would assume that he would be their number one driver, or their biggest asset. So therefore, the confusion comes when you're not upfront from the beginning of what your plans are.''

For Formula 1, it is nice to see a young driver like Oscar Piastri making significant strides in his second season in the sport. Piastri is getting closer and closer to his teammate and is starting to defeat him more and more often. Above all, Piastri is mentally very strong, as this victory showed just that. Nothing confuses the Australian.

Piastri could eventually become a good challenger for the world title, but in 2024 that may come too late, as his gap behind Verstappen is huge with only 7 races to go. The upside for McLaren is knowing they have two drivers for 2025 who look ready to be contenders. The downside is that the 'junior' of the two might be the stronger bet.

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