McLaren driver Oscar Piastri capped his error-strewn weekend in Baku with a crash in the 2025 F1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, which ended a run of 44 consecutive race finishes.
Piastri headed to Baku on the second-longest streak of consecutive Grand Prix finishes in F1 history. Only a 48-race run set by Lewis Hamilton between the 2018 British GP and the 2020 Bahrain GP eclipses the Australian’s 44-race streak, which finished with 34 top-10s in a row.
The 24-year-old had not failed to finish a Grand Prix since his rookie campaign with McLaren in the 2023 F1 season. Piastri ultimately retired from the 2023 United States Grand Prix due to the damage he had sustained from a first-lap collision with then-Alpine ace Esteban Ocon.
Piastri only had himself to blame for his brief first lap in the 2025 Azerbaijan GP, which only lasted until Turn 5. After Piastri jumped the start and fell to last place in Baku, he then found the barrier after locking up carrying too much speed around now-Haas racer Ocon’s outside.
Oscar Piastri’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix crash shows he’s changing to cope with being an F1 title contender
It was not the 2025 F1 drivers’ championship leader’s first blunder in Baku, either, as Piastri crashed during qualifying for the Azerbaijan GP without posting a lap time in Q3. But Lando Norris failed to punish his teammate’s turmoil, as he qualified P7 and also only finished P7.
READ MORE: McLaren driver Oscar Piastri’s life outside F1 from height to girlfriend
| ROUND | CHAMPIONSHIP LEADER | MARGIN AT MCLAREN |
| Australian GP | Norris (25 points) | 23 points over Piastri |
| Chinese GP | Norris (44 points) | 10 points over Piastri |
| Japanese GP | Norris (62 points) | 13 points over Piastri |
| Bahrain GP | Norris (77 points) | 3 points over Piastri |
| Saudi Arabian GP | Piastri (99 points) | 10 points over Norris |
| Miami GP | Piastri (131 points) | 16 points over Norris |
| Emilia Romagna GP | Piastri (146 points) | 13 points over Norris |
| Monaco GP | Piastri (161 points) | 3 points over Norris |
| Spanish GP | Piastri (186 points) | 10 points over Norris |
| Canadian GP | Piastri (198 points) | 22 points over Norris |
| Austrian GP | Piastri (216 points) | 15 points over Norris |
| British GP | Piastri (234 points) | 8 points over Norris |
| Belgian GP | Piastri (266 points) | 16 points over Norris |
| Hungarian GP | Piastri (284 points) | 9 points over Norris |
| Dutch GP | Piastri (309 points) | 34 points over Norris |
| Italian GP | Piastri (324 points) | 31 points over Norris |
| Azerbaijan GP | Piastri (324 points) | 25 points over Norris |
Jacques Villeneuve feels Piastri’s plight at the Azerbaijan GP also revealed how the pressure of leading the drivers’ standings is beginning to impact the Melbourne native. He held a 31-point lead over Norris before the Baku round and this could be their only year to win a title.
The 2026 F1 regulation changes could see McLaren fall from the front of the field. So, Piastri and Norris know they must give their 2025 title bids everything, which Villeneuve thinks has led the former to start changing his driving style and resulted in a race-ending crash in Baku.
Villeneuve said, via quotes by F1-Insider: “He has to learn to live with pressure. He suddenly feels he has the chance to win the title. That changes everything.
“In Baku, he couldn’t handle the pressure. Young drivers suddenly change their style in such situations, and then mistakes creep in.”
Is Oscar Piastri, F1’s new Kimi Raikkonen, cracking under the pressure of being a title contender?
Piastri has often impressed during the 2025 season with how the Australian has handled the pressure of not only being a title contender, but leading the championship. He stole the lead away from Norris after winning the Saudi Arabian GP in the fifth of the 17 rounds held so far.
| Position | Drivers’ Championship | Points |
| 1 |
Oscar Piastri |
324 |
| 2 |
Lando Norris |
299 |
| 3 |
Max Verstappen |
255 |
| 4 |
George Russell |
212 |
Nico Rosberg and Martin Brundle have called Piastri the new Kimi Raikkonen due to the ice-cool personality he has shown this term. Yet brushes with the barriers during practice and a crash in qualifying even saw Villeneuve claim Piastri drove “erratically” all weekend in Baku.
It would be quite the change for Piastri to now start to crack under the pressure, having also coped with Norris reducing his deficit to three points at the Monaco GP, eight points at the British GP and nine points at the Hungarian GP. A lot might now become clear in Singapore.
Should Piastri bounce straight back at the Singapore GP on October 3-5, as he did following Norris’ aforementioned resurgences, then the Australian cracking under the pressure would appear questionable. But further mistakes at Marina Bay may spark questions about Piastri.