Oscar Piastri had a torrid time on the streets of Baku. The championship leader crashed out of qualifying and the Grand Prix, cementing the race weekend in Azerbaijan as one to forget for the McLaren driver.
Luckily for Piastri, his title rival and McLaren teammate, Lando Norris, was unable to capitalise on the Australian’s errors as he finished in seventh place.
The result meant that Norris’ deficit to the 24-year-old was cut down by just six points, with Piastri still holding a one-win advantage of 25 points over his rival.
| Position | Drivers’ Championship | Points |
| 1 |
Oscar Piastri |
324 |
| 2 |
Lando Norris |
299 |
| 3 |
Max Verstappen |
255 |
| 4 |
George Russell |
212 |
| 5 |
Charles Leclerc |
165 |
| 6 |
Lewis Hamilton |
121 |
Max Verstappen went on to win the Azerbaijan Grand Prix for his second consecutive victory in the 2025 campaign.
He moved up to within 44 points of Norris in second, meaning that a few more results in favour of the Dutchman could see him emerge as a title contender in the final rounds of the season.
Jolyon Palmer hints at Oscar Piastri showing his first signs of being ‘nervous’ in the 2025 F1 title fight
Former F1 driver Jolyon Palmer broke down Piastri’s short appearance in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, analysing where the 24-year-old went wrong as he crashed out after just five corners.
Now a pundit for F1TV, Palmer hinted at Piastri’s first mistake, jumping the lights before they went out, as a new side of the McLaren driver, one which shows his nervousness in relation to the title fight he is currently in charge of.
“If you just watch his right hand, he’s just going to simply drop the clutch with the lights still on,” Palmer said, as he analysed the onboard footage from Piastri’s first and only lap of the race.
“It seems to me like a human error, really. Just twitchy, maybe nervous with the title in play. And the first time we’ve seen Oscar really look fallible to a bit of pressure.
“He releases the clutch again, and we get a second bout of anti-stall, which means he’s gone from ninth to absolutely the back of the field.
“So even without his crash, it’s going to be a tall order for him to get any points after that.”
The championship leader would have been handed a five-second penalty for the jump start, with many believing that he would receive a grid drop at the next round of racing. However, Piastri won’t be penalised in Singapore for the infringement, much to the dismay of F1 fans.
Oscar Piastri was too ‘ambitious’ in trying to rectify his mistake at the drop of the lights in Baku
Palmer then moved on to analysing his crash at turn five. He appeared to have placed himself on the dirty side of the Baku City Circuit, and paid the price for it as he locked up into the corner and careered into the barriers.
“So we move on to the first lap and this is going to be the end of a miserable weekend for Ice Cold Oscar,” Palmer continued. “He’s trying to make places up, and he’s actually made a couple already on the first lap.
“He’s in a McLaren. He’s on new medium tyres. This is the best tyre for the start of the race, and he’s just thinking, I need to make amends for this. We’ve got Esteban Ocon just ahead of him. But as we come through, he’s just pretty ambitious on the brakes here.
“Full tank of fuel, medium tyres, probably not up to temperature in a cooler Baku. And he’s just ambitious. He’s trying to make up for his already fluffed start. And in we go then to this corner. He locks up, and once he locks up here, he’s just not going to save that again all the way to the barrier.”
The result marked Piastri’s first points-less finish in F1 for 33 Grands Prix, with his 13th-place finish at the 2024 Miami Grand Prix serving as the last time he finished out of the top 10. You’d have to go back to the 2023 United States Grand Prix to find his most recent classification of a DNF.
In the end, Piastri blamed no one but himself for the lapse of judgement in Azerbaijan. He now has to look towards the upcoming Singapore Grand Prix, where he can bounce back and add to his current lead in the F1 standings.