As Verstappen closes on McLaren in title fight, is Piastri feeling the pressure?

Verstappen came into the U.S GP with a 63-point deficit to championship leader Oscar Piastri, however the Dutchman has closed that gap down to a 40-point deficit after dominating the Sprint weekend, which also saw McLaren score a double DNF in Saturday's 100km race.

Having qualified P6 the Australian struggled to make much meaningful progress throughout the race save for the overtake on George Russell at the start forcing the championship to settle for a fifth place finish.

Title rivals Verstappen and Norris secured first and second, continuing a streak of races that have seen Piastri's lead in the championship slashed significantly.

Piastri's last victory came on August 31st at the Dutch Grand Prix in Zandvoort, but the Australian has since struggled to compete for wins.

In the Italian Grand Prix, Piastri only managed a third place finish, as Norris reached the chequered flag in P2 with Verstappen winning in a dominant fashion.

After signing off from Azerbaijan with two crashes and a big zero, Piastri lost out to his teammate in a highly talked about wheel-banging duel that saw tensions rise dramatically at McLaren for the first time, with Norris incurring in unnamed repercussions for his role in the papaya drivers' clash.

Meanwhile, Verstappen won the race in Baku and came home in P2 at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, making further headway in the standings.

Whilst McLaren have struggled for results since returning from the summer break, team principal Andrea Stella does believe that, "Good tracks are coming for our car."

In the early part of the season, it seemed that McLaren were set to dominate at most circuits. However, since the summer break, the team have only managed to win the race in Zandvoort.

Coming into last weekend's U.S Grand Prix, Verstappen was 63-points down on Piastri in the championship, and needed to outscore the Australian by a decent margin for his championship aspirations to continue on to Mexico.

Qualifying on pole for the sprint race which saw both McLaren drivers retire after a Lap 1, Turn 1 melee, allowed the Dutchman to deduct a full 8 points from Piastri's gap in one swipe.

Verstappen followed up with pole position for the race and an authoritative win under the Texas sun that saw Norris take P2 after a race-long fight with Charles Leclerc, as Piastri could only muster a P5 result, losing another 15 points to Verstappen and a further 8 points to Norris.

Whilst Verstappen has scored 119 points from a maximum possible of 133 points during the last five Grands Prix weekends, Piastri in comparison has only managed to score 62 points.

The gap between them now sits at 40 points going into the Mexican Grand Prix, where Piastri's best result at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez circuit so far, is eighth position at both the 2023 and 2024 Grands Prix respectively.

Is Oscar Piastri beginning to feel the pressure? This is the Australian's third season in Formula One, and he has been leading the championship since April.

However, despite leading the championship for most of the season, Norris is as close as ever with Verstappen bringing himself back into the title fight decisively.

As the season's drawing to a close the stakes are as high as ever, and it is up to Piastri to step up and rack up the results his car can provide and seal the title. It's a defining moment for the championship leader and perhaps he knows it too.

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