Norris admitted after the race in Mexico that there had been times earlier this year when he “certainly did” doubt himself.
“When the car was winning and Oscar was winning,” he said, “the last thing I could do was use the excuse that my car wasn’t good enough.
“I wasn’t getting to grips and finding a way to make it work and I’m finding a better way to make it work now, so it’s as simple as that.”
It is now Piastri facing that feeling, after two difficult weekends during which he has been a fair bit off the pace.
“For some reason, the last couple of weekends has required a very different way of driving,” said Piastri.
“What’s worked well for me in the last 19 races, I’ve needed something very different the last couple of weekends. Trying to wrap my head around why has been a bit of a struggle.”
After qualifying 0.588 seconds and seven places behind Norris in Mexico, Piastri spent Saturday night deep in the data with his engineers, trying to come up with some answers.
The race was about trying to apply them – even if he was not able to get a definitive answer as to whether they had worked, given he spent most of it stuck behind other cars on his way to a fifth place that will have felt painful, but in reality amounted to a solid recovery and exercise in damage limitation.
“Ultimately today was about trying to experiment with some of those things,” continued Piastri. “Because driving the way I’ve had to drive these last couple of weekends is not particularly natural for me.
Team boss Andrea Stella had an explanation for Piastri’s struggles.
He said that Norris excels in low-grip conditions, whereas Piastri’s driving style tends more towards high-grip levels, and he pointed out that, in only his third season, Piastri still has things to learn about adapting to different conditions.
“In the final four races, no reason to think that one may favour one driver or the other,” said Stella, pointing to Las Vegas as the most problematic potentially for the team.
“For Lando and Oscar, there’s no problem in terms of track layout coming in the next four races. If anything, we need to make sure that from a McLaren point of view, we are in condition to extract the full performance that is available in the car, like we have been able to do here in Mexico.
“The confidence in terms of the championship is increased. It’s increased because we have proven that we have a car that can win races and in some conditions can dominate races. This is the most important factor to put Lando and Oscar in condition to pursue the drivers’ championship.”
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