Piastri fires back at Jos Verstappen: ‘I can stand up for myself’

Oscar Piastri has fired back with quiet confidence after Jos Verstappen publicly urged the Australian to “stand up for himself” in what the Dutchman described as a “strange” situation at McLaren.

The rookie-turned-title-contender insists he’s perfectly capable of asserting his position within the team – and that talk of McLaren favouring teammate Lando Norris is wide of the mark.

Verstappen’s comments, made to De Telegraaf, suggested that Piastri or his manager Mark Webber should “bang [their] fist on the table” amid speculation that McLaren had placed more emphasis on Norris’ championship run.

Piastri, however, sees things differently.

“I think for me, we're always very open with each other in terms of what we think, whether we think things have been fair, whether we think the right decisions have been made,” Piastri said.

“And from that side of things we can stand up for ourselves and I feel very comfortable doing that. And that's very much encouraged by the team to kind of make our point for ourselves individually.

“But I think it's obviously a difficult dynamic to manage when you've got the two cars in the same team fighting for a championship that only one car can win.”

Tensions Inevitable, but McLaren is Fair

The 24-year-old acknowledged that internal competition brings inevitable tension but praised McLaren for handling it fairly.

“There's obviously naturally going to be difficulties with that, but I respect the team allowing us to both try and fight for the drivers' championship,” Piastri added.

“I think for myself I want to go out there and try and win the championship knowing that I did it on my own merit and doing the things that I could do in my control.

“And obviously if you pick one driver, you've got a 50% chance that you're not going to be that driver. So I think for me we're very much encouraged and welcomed to stand up for ourselves already, so I don't think anything needs to change.”

Understanding the Recent Struggles

After a blistering start to the season, Piastri’s recent form has dipped – something McLaren boss Andrea Stella partly attributed to low-grip track conditions.

The nine-time Grand Prix winner agrees that the last two rounds have posed unique challenges.

“I think Austin and Mexico are a bit different to quite a lot of other circuits we've been to,” he explained.

“I think even just when you look at the tyre usage on both of those weekends: to have two weekends where the soft tyre in Mexico was a C5 and – apart from the C6, which is kind of off on its own – to have the softest tyres, be the tyre to be on in qualifying and the race is not that usual and that has been a big difference from earlier in the season.

“So I think there is something that's been a bit different. I don't know what exactly that is, but I think it's just been in some circuits maybe a corner or two where you need to adapt to things like that and drive a bit differently.

“But the last couple of weekends it's been you've needed to drive differently all the time in a way that I've not had to for the whole year.

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“I've just been trying to understand more of what I need to shift to and how that feels has been the biggest learning curve with that.

“But I think when you look at the tyre usage we've had, things have been a little bit different. I don't think anything has changed necessarily, but there's been something a bit different with the last couple of weekends compared to the majority of races.”

As the title race tightens heading into Sao Paulo, Piastri’s response is clear: he doesn’t need to slam his fist on any tables – he’s already doing the talking where it matters most.

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