Oscar Piastri is confident that he has “reset” and learned from his mistakes last time out in Baku as he prepares to bounce back at the Singapore Grand Prix, with the McLaren driver admitting that he is “only human”.
The Azerbaijan Grand Prix proved to be a challenging weekend for Piastri, culminating in the Australian crashing out of the race on Lap 1 to mark his first non-finish since 2023.
Ahead of Round 18 at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, Piastri spoke of feeling ready to go again after taking time to recharge in the time since Baku.
“I feel good,” the 24-year-old explained. “It was nice to just have a few days off to relax and reset. It’s been a productive week, just focused on this weekend and trying to get back to what we know we can do.”
Pushed on whether the ‘real Oscar Piastri’ has returned for the weekend ahead in Singapore, Piastri smiled: “I hope so! Obviously I don’t want to repeat what happened in Baku, but mistakes are going to happen. I’m only human, at the end of the day. It’s going to happen.
“Obviously I don’t want to make those again, but I think they are going to happen no matter what they look like, and just trying to make sure you move on from them is the most important thing and [to] learn from them.
“It doesn’t really matter if it’s missing an apex or locking up, jumping a start; it’s how you learn from it and move on that’s the important part, and I feel like I’ve been able to do that in the week off.”
Piastri added that he had learned “a number of things – nothing that revolutionary”, but made clear that he does not feel that a change of approach is required going forward as he denied any suggestions that pressure had been a factor in the errors last time out.
“I think Quali was just trying to push a little bit too hard – it happens,” the papaya racer said. “I think the race, I would say probably the crash was somewhat related to the start. It’s never easy to shake off a start like that in such a short time.
“There’s a lot of learning from that, but I think just silly mistakes more than anything else. I don’t feel like I need to change how I’m approaching things or anything like that. There’s been some good lessons, definitely, but some of those lessons have been that what I’ve been doing so far is working pretty good.”
In term of how he approaches recovering from a tough weekend, Piastri continued: “Looking at what went wrong is important – you can’t just run away from it or hide form it.
“I think there was a lot of good lessons to take from Baku and I think generally when you have difficult moments or difficult weekends, that’s probably when you learn more than in the good ones. That’s how I’ve tried to approach it.”
Having left Baku without any further points on the board, Piastri’s lead at the top of the championship has been cut to 25 points from McLaren team mate Lando Norris while Max Verstappen has closed the gap to 69 points in third.
However, when asked if he will now start to think about the title fight more, Piastri responded: “No, I don’t think it’s ever a great idea to drive like that. Even with less races to go, I think the most important thing is going to be to just try and do the best job that I can.
“The picture in the championship will look however it will look, but I know that when I drive at my best and give my absolute best then I’m more than capable of winning races, and ultimately that’s what’s going to win you championships, so that’s what I’m focused on doing.”
