Lando

Hamilton also faces an investigation for failing to slow sufficiently for the yellow flags waved when Leclerc lost control.

Norris topped all three sessions in sprint qualifying and had a comfortable advantage over Piastri throughout.

He said: “It was a little bit tougher than I would have liked. But we did the job we needed to do, which was to be fastest today.

“Qualifying is always one of the best things here. It’s difficulty, it’s bumpy, it’s tricky, always a joy, always puts a smile on your face.

“But a long weekend, another qualifying and another couple of races to go but a good start.”

Rain is forecast for Saturday morning in Sao Paulo, when the sprint race is due to start at 14:00 GMT. Qualifying for the grand prix is at 18:00.

Norris’ result is the best possible start to the weekend and gives him the opportunity to build his championship lead – eight points are awarded to the winner of the sprint, seven for second and so on down to eighth place.

Antonelli impressed in second, his best time set on his first lap, while the surprise package of qualifying was Alonso, who set the fastest time in the second session and was just 0.253secs off pole in his midfield car in the final shootout.

His team-mate Lance Stroll was seventh fastest, ahead of Leclerc, Racing Bulls’ Iscak Hadjar and Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg.

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.”

Piastri, meanwhile, cut a somewhat forlorn figure. He had a difficult weekend in the US a week ago and thought he had found the answers. But as he put it: “What’s been a bit surprising here has just been that the gap has been the same pretty much every session.

“I feel like I’ve done some decent laps through the weekend, but everything seems to be about 0.4-0.5secs off.”

Team principal Andrea Stella said Piastri was losing a little bit everywhere, and Piastri said: “I feel like I did a reasonable job and the car felt reasonable as well. So, yeah, the lack of lap time is a bit of a mystery.”

Piastri has been off Norris’ pace whether on short runs or long, low fuel or high, so it is more in hope that he said of the race: “If I can unlock the pace in the car, we can have some fun. We’ve just got to try to unlock it.”

This is now Piastri’s fifth difficult weekend in a row, his form mysteriously evaporating since he won in the Netherlands at the end of August.

He did not talk directly about what this means for the championship, but there was no hiding the meaning behind one of his comments: “There’s a lot of things I could worry about, but ultimately being that far off when you feel like you’ve done a reasonable job is a difficult place to be. And so that’s my biggest concern at the moment.”

Stella said that the conditions in Mexico, like those in Austin, are ones in which Norris thrives and Piastri is less comfortable – low grip, hot tyres.

And he said that “every evidence, every piece of data, every indirect measurement of information we have, tells us that there is no problem with the car”.

He added that it was “good” for McLaren to be able “to confirm that we can have the fastest car”, adding that their “focus is to stop the momentum of Verstappen”.

Norris started alongside Verstappen on the front row, hoping McLaren’s usually strong race performance would allow him to challenge the Red Bull driver, who had won two of the past three races and beaten the McLarens in all of them.

But Norris’ hopes of the win evaporated quickly as Leclerc used the extra grip of the soft tyres – he was the only driver in the top 10 to pick them for the start, with everyone else on mediums – to catapult into second place at the first corner.

As Verstappen built his lead, through an early virtual safety car period caused by a collision between Williams’ Carlos Sainz and Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli, Norris tried in vain to pass Leclerc, with Hamilton in close attendance.

Several times Norris challenged Leclerc on the outside at Turn 12, at the end of the long back straight, but he was never close enough to really try for a pass.

As Verstappen built his lead, Leclerc held on until just before he stopped for fresh tyres on lap 22, fitting the medium compound.

Verstappen stopped a couple of laps later, never losing the lead and enjoying an untroubled win, his third in four races and fifth of the season, matching Norris’ tally.

Norris stayed out for a further 10 laps, dropping behind the Ferrari again when he stopped to fit the soft tyres.

The Briton emerged 2.4 seconds behind Leclerc and within four laps was on the Ferrari’s tail.

But again he could not pass and soon he was on the radio saying his tyres we’re gone.

Norris was advised by his race engineer Will Joseph to back off for a few laps to cool his tyres and try again.

Norris did so, and closed in with five laps to go. He challenged into Turn One, briefly getting past, only for Leclerc to cut back and reclaim the place.

But half a lap later, Norris went for the position again into Turn 12, dummying Leclerc and this time making the move stick.

By this stage, Hamilton had dropped back and took a lonely fourth place.

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen beat McLaren’s Lando Norris to pole position at the United States Grand Prix with championship leader Oscar Piastri down in sixth.

After the McLaren drivers crashed out of the sprint earlier on Saturday, neither was able to challenge Verstappen even though the world champion failed to complete a final run in qualifying.

Verstappen was sent out too late to get around in time to start a last lap before the chequered flag but still beat Norris by 0.291 seconds.

It was an imperious performance that underlined why McLaren are concerned about his threat in the drivers’ championship.

Norris saved his best for last in a difficult session to pip Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc to second on the grid by just 0.006secs.

But Piastri, who has looked out of sorts all weekend, was not quick and he ended up 0.574secs off the pace, and behind Mercedes’ George Russell and the second Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton.

The crash was a gift for Verstappen, who McLaren have always insisted remained a threat in the championship despite his significant deficit, especially as Red Bull have returned to form in recent races.

The crash brought out the safety car for five laps and after the restart Verstappen was tracked by Russell, who made a bold move into Turn 12 on lap seven, a late dive that ended up with both going off the track.

Verstappen retained the position and soon began to edge away and took control of the race.

Sainz was no threat to Russell, but he had to watch his mirrors for Hamilton.

The seven-time champion passed team-mate Charles Leclerc on lap eight down the back straight after the Monegasque lost control of his car through the high-speed Esses earlier in the lap.

Leclerc had a snap through the Esses, cut one of the corners, and that allowed Hamilton to close up. He then passed down the straight as Leclerc edged him right to the edge of the track on the inside.

Leclerc tried to fight back through the series of slower corners through the stadium section but Hamilton held on.

Leclerc took fifth place, with Williams’ Alex Albon sixth and Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda seventh.

Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli took the final point after a 10-second penalty for Haas driver Oliver Bearman, who was adjudged to have gained an advantage by leaving the track after the Italian tried a passing move into Turn 12 late in the race.

Bearman could not believe the penalty when told about it by his team during the race, obviously feeling Antonelli had forced him off track with his late move.

The race ended under another safety car after Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll T-boned Esteban Ocon’s Haas into the first corner, leaving his team with a massive repair job on both cars in the gap before grand prix qualifying at 22:00 BST.

Piastri had looked to be struggling compared with Norris since the start of practice and was a good chunk off the Briton in all three qualifying sessions.

Norris said: “Disappointed not to be on pole but not a surprise for us to be just a bit slower than the Red Bull lately.

“A little couple of bits here and there I could have improved on and caught a few bumps a little bit wrong, that’s the difficulty of this track. Otherwise, all happy.”

Piastri said: “A pretty scruffy lap. Just didn’t really get it together. In some ways, I feel a bit fortunate to be third. The pace in the car is good. It’s nothing major, just been a bit of a messy lap and hopefully I can tidy it up tomorrow.”

The sprint offers eight points for the winner down to one for eighth place.

The stand-out performance in qualifying came from Hulkenberg, the first time he has qualified in the top 10 all year, and the best Sauber performance of the season.

Their previous top grid position was seventh for team-mate Gabriel Bortoleto in Hungary at the start of August.

“Satisfied, happy, as you might imagine,” the German said. “P1 looked too good to be true. We weren’t sure if it was the real deal but we were able to continue that trend. Hopefully we can hang on to it this weekend.

“The pace was just there. The car seemed to be fast and in a good window, hit the sweet spot, I think that’s all.”

McLaren’s Lando Norris set the pace in practice at the United States Grand Prix, split from team-mate and title rival Oscar Piastri by Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg.

Norris, trailing the Australian by 22 points with six races to go, headed Piastri by 0.279 seconds at the start of a sprint weekend at the Circuit of the Americas.

Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso was fourth fastest, ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Williams’ Alex Albon.

This was the only session before sprint qualifying at 22:30 BST.

Mercedes’ George Russell was seventh fastest, the first driver to set his fastest time on the medium tyres, ahead of Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton, Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar and Haas’ Oliver Bearman.

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who is 63 points behind Piastri in the championship but has won two of the past three races and finished second in the other, was asked in a news conference on Thursday in Austin whether he believed McLaren were favouring Norris.

He replied: “Absolutely.”

He laughed, and then said: “Yep.”

Leaving the news conference, he said off-microphone: “Well, there’s a headline.”

BBC Sport sought clarification from Verstappen as to whether he had been joking, and he said through a PR person that he had been.

In answer to the same favouritism question, Verstappen added: “I honestly don’t know. I don’t care also. It has nothing to do with me. They do whatever they think is right and they are doing a very good job of it being so quick.

“For me, the most important thing is we maximise our potential and as long as we do that, it is in our control.”

Piastri said: “I’m very happy that there’s no favouritism or bias.”

McLaren have been determined to keep the fight between their two drivers as fair as possible but their approach was always likely to lead to controversy at some point.

That was certainly the case at Monza, as they interfered after the sort of twist of fate that often turns driver’s races.

Norris unquestionably deserved the second place on the balance of the race, but his pit stop problem left the team with an agonising quandary.

It is normal practice to pit the lead driver first in such a scenario but McLaren decided they wanted to pit Piastri first, saying they made the decision to ensure he was clear of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who had pitted earlier on a conventional strategy.

Norris questioned it when told of the decision, saying he was fine “as long as there was no undercut”, which would be him being passed by Piastri going faster on his out lap. He was assured there would be no such thing.

Piastri’s stop was faultless at 1.9 seconds but Norris’s front right wheel gun had a problem and his stop was 5.9, so Piastri was in the lead when Norris re-emerged on to the track.

Piastri was immediately told to let Norris back past. His engineer Tom Stallard said: “Oscar, this is a bit like Hungary last year. We pitted in this order for team reasons. Please let Lando past and then you are free to race.”

Piastri replied: “I mean, we said a slow pit stop was part of racing, so I don’t really get what’s changed here. But if you really want me to do it, then I’ll do it.”

After the race, Norris said: “Every now and again we make mistakes as a team. Today was one of them.”

The point of view of both drivers is understandable, and it will be interesting to see how McLaren manage this in the increasing tension of a title fight.

Speaking to Sky Sports later, Piastri was accepting of the decision, saying: “The decision to swap back was fair. Lando was ahead of me the whole race. I don’t have any issues with that.”

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen snatched pole position for the Italian Grand Prix from Lando Norris with the fastest lap in Formula 1 history.

The Dutchman’s time of one minute 18.792 seconds beat the lap set by Lewis Hamilton at Monza in 2020 for Mercedes by 0.095secs – at an average speed of 164.484mph.

Norris had just leapt to the top of the times after a difficult first run left him seventh, but Verstappen pipped him by 0.077 seconds for his first pole since the British Grand Prix in July.

McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, leading Norris by 34 points in their championship battle, was third fastest, ahead of the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton.

But the seven-time champion has a five-place penalty and will start the grand prix at Monza 10th.

That promotes Mercedes’ George Russell to fifth, ahead of team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto, Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso and Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda.

Verstappen’s pole time seemed to surprise even the Dutchman himself, after he struggled for pace through the practice sessions.

Mercedes’ George Russell was fourth fastest, ahead of Verstappen’s Red Bull and the Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton, who was 0.848secs off the pace.

The seven-time champion had two spins during the day, both times without hitting anything.

The first was in the first session, when he spun entering Hugenholtz, the second when he ran a little wide out of the tricky right-hander at Turn Nine and put his rear wheel on to the grass.

Nevertheless, Hamilton ended the day 0.096secs and two places ahead of team-mate Charles Leclerc, an encouraging start to the final part of the season after a difficult end to the first for the Briton.

Hamilton said: “Not been the worst of days. We were making progress. We were quite far off in P1, a lot further than normal. We progressed but still quite a chunk off so we have some work to do overnight.

“Pace-wise we are where we are. I don’t know how we’re going to find 0.8secs but we will try our best.”

He said of his spins: “First one was just pushing too much. Also ride quality is not where we’d want it, so the car is quite unpredictable. The second one I touched the grass and had a snap.”

Leclerc described it as “a very, very, very, very difficult Friday, probably the worst of the season” and said they were losing “90% of the time” in two corners. He did not name them, but it was the tricky two right-handers of Turns Eight and Nine.

Leclerc said it would take a “miracle” to turn the situation around.

Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda was seventh and Alex Albon was another to crash in the second session in the Williams, going straight on at the first corner, Tarzan, and breaking his front wing against the barriers.

Verstappen himself had an off after the end of the first session, misjudging his braking into the Tarzan hairpin that starts the lap after doing a practice start.

Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli crashed in the first session, running off track at Turn Nine and ended the second session 12th.

FORMULA ONE star Lando Norris’ girlfriend Margarida Corceiro took social media by storm.

Margarida, 22, posed in a glitzy backless dress as she advertised Kerastase‘s latest products.

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The Portuguese actress and model added a series of photos and clips on Instagram for her 2.1million followers.

Margarida added the following caption: “Anywhere, every day.”

Her post attracted over 104,000 likes and left her fans in awe as they stormed the comments’ section.

This fan posted: “You look soo angelic.”

Another commented: “Stunning!”

A third wrote: “YESSS!”

This fan said: “She is literally a princess.”

And that one gushed: “Wow!”

Margarida and Norris, 25, arrived together for the Hungarian Grand Prix on Saturday.

And she shared a series of glam pics during her visit to support the McLaren star.

The Brit has started the latest chapter of his whirlwind romantic life after getting back together with Margarida. 

The pair have had an on-off relationship but were seen sharing a kiss following his win at the Hungarian GP on Sunday.

Scroll down for more from Margarida Corceiro

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Piastri had demonstrated how difficult it is for the driver on pole to lead by the end of the first lap at Spa by losing the sprint race win to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.

The Dutchman slipstreamed past Piastri up the hill to Les Combes, and then held the McLaren at bay for 15 laps, while Norris followed closely in third.

In the grand prix, it was Norris in front, with Piastri in second and Piastri had been thinking about the opportunity this presented him since losing out on pole the day before.

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella said: “This weekend, Oscar, if anything, the only inaccuracy was in qualifying, where his laps weren’t perfect.

“At the same time, we have to say that after the sprint qualifying, he said, ‘Yeah, I’m in pole position, but maybe this is not the right place to be in pole position.’

“And as a joke, after the qualifying yesterday, he said, ‘That was not my best lap in Q3, but perhaps this is the best place not to have the best lap in Q3.'”

Sure enough, Piastri took the lead on lap one of the grand prix, just as Verstappen had the day before.

“I had a good run out of Turn One,” he said, “and then tried to be as brave as I could through Eau Rouge and was able to stay pretty close. After that, the slipstream did the rest for me.

“When I watched the onboard back, it didn’t look quite as scary as it felt in the car. I knew that I had to be very committed to pull that off.”

But Norris could have done a better job. For a start, he failed to build himself a gap over the finish line by arguably going too early at the restart. Then he made a mistake at La Source, which allowed Piastri to be right on his tail approaching Eau Rouge.

“I didn’t have the best Turn One,” Norris said. “So it’s hard to know how much that played a part. At the same time, Oscar came past me pretty easily. So even if I had a better Turn One, his run and the slipstream probably still would have got me.”

Stella said: “It would have always been very difficult for Lando to keep the position starting first at the safety car restart. At the same time, I think Lando didn’t help himself by not having a great gap on the finish line.”

The contrast to the outcome of a very similar incident in Canada two races ago between Mercedes’ George Russell and Verstappen was notable.

In Montreal, after the stewards took no action, Red Bull lodged a protest, but it was dismissed out of hand.

Piastri said: “Going back to Canada, I think he had to evade more there than he did today. So, yeah, I’m a bit confused to say the least.”

There was also the feeling within McLaren that Verstappen may have ‘gamed’ the system by exaggerating how much it affected him.

“I don’t think he had to evade me,” Piastri said. “He managed the first time.”

Team principal Andrea Stella said: “We’ll have to see also if other competitors kind of made the situation look worse than what it is.

“Because we know that as part of the race-craft, some competitors definitely have the ability to make others look like they are causing severe infringement when they are not.”

Verstappen said: “The thing is that it happened to me now a few times, this kind of scenario. I just find it strange that suddenly now Oscar is the first one to receive 10 seconds first.”

Was that because because there was no difference from what Russell did in Canada?

“Well, to the stewards, yes, (there was),” Verstappen said.

The end result was that Norris has moved himself on to four wins for the season, one short of Piastri.

“I felt like I drove a really strong race,” Piastri said. “Ultimately, when you don’t get the result you think you deserve, it hurts, especially when it’s not in your control.

“I will use the frustration to make sure I win some more races later.”

Both have two weekends off to reset and refresh before battle recommences at the Belgian Grand Prix, the start of the second half of the season.

The race started on a wet track after a soaking wet morning, but with the sun out and more rain heading towards Silverstone.

Verstappen held the lead through a brief challenge from Piastri off the line but he could not shake the McLarens, and Piastri was soon challenging him hard for the lead.

Before he could try a move, though, a virtual safety car was deployed after Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto crashed at Turn Two on lap four.

The race was restarted on lap seven, and Piastri was past Verstappen on the Hangar Straight before two laps were over, building a 2.9-second lead after just one lap.

It was then Norris’ turn to challenge the Red Bull, but Verstappen gifted him the position when he slid off at Becketts on lap 11, just as heavy rain started.

That brought the drivers into the pits for fresh intermediates. By then, Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll had gained time by an earlier change to soft tyres when the track was drying and emerged in fourth place, with Hulkenberg in fifth after stopping for inters on lap 10, so benefiting when others had to drive on a wet track on slick tyres and then pit.

The rain became heavier and a safety car was deployed on lap 14. The race restarted on lap 18, but a second safety car was sent out within a lap after Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar ran into the back of Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes at Copse because he could not see him in the spray.

When the race restarted for the last time on lap 22, with Verstappen spinning from second down to 10th, Piastri started to try to build a lead but he was not able to get more than four seconds ahead before Norris came back at him – he was less than two seconds back by the time Piastri pitted to serve his penalty with nine laps to go.

Stroll was unable to hold on to his third place, soon being passed by Hulkenberg and then Hamilton and eventually dropping down to seventh place.

Behind Verstappen, Alpine’s Pierre Gasly, who was fifth at the restart, lost places to Hamilton and the Dutchman but was able to secure sixth place.

Williams’ Alex Albon was eighth, ahead of Fernando Alonso, who was frustrated by his team’s strategy costing him places in the topsy-turvy early part of the race, and then pitted a couple of laps too early for slick tyres as the track dried in the closing stages.

That dropped him to last, but he recovered to take ninth, ahead of Mercedes’ George Russell, who also stopped early for slicks for the final time.

Verstappen said he “had to commit a lot” in the high-speed corners because of the low-downforce set-up the team had chosen, which made the car on edge in the demanding corners.

The low wing levels come with pros and cons – it gives faster speed on the straight but makes the car more difficult through the corners and potentially increases tyre wear.

Verstappen said: “We looked a bit slow on the other wing plus it was understeering to the moon, and I needed to get rid of that understeer. It was light on downforce but it seemed to work.”

Piastri was quickest after the first laps of qualifying but he failed to improve on his second lap, at least partly because of a couple of slides of the rear out of the final corner, Club.

The championship leader said: “I was happy with the first lap. It was mega, to be honest. I was trying to think of how I would go faster and I didn’t.

“The second lap was a bit messy but it has been tight all weekend; a little on the table, but we’ll never know if it’s enough.”

Piastri said he was “not that surprised Max is quick here”, it’s quite similar speed and conditions to Suzuka,” where Verstappen won from pole.

Norris, who trails Piastri by 15 points going into the race, which marks the halfway point of the season, said: “Good qualifying. I am not going to be unhappy with third, would love to be pole but Max did a good job, a fun qualifying today. Not the top but still a good day.

“It’s going to be fun tomorrow, a good fight, with the three of us, and probably with Lewis and Charles and George as well.”

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who suffered a blow to his already slim championship hopes when he was taken out of last weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix by Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli, was only 10th fastest, complaining about the balance of his car.

Red Bull are one of a number of teams with revised floors for this event, the others McLaren, Aston Martin, Haas, Williams and Sauber.

At Aston Martin, Fernando Alonso used the new floor in the first session, to end up 11th fastest, while team-mate Lance Stroll ran the previous specification for comparison and ended up just one place behind.

In warm temperatures and in front of a large crowd, Alpine’s Pierre Gasly and Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto both had huge spins at the ultra-fast Copse corner, remarkably without going off track and damaging their cars.

This season Piastri is in another league compared to his team-mate. The incident in Canada was a direct result of Lando making yet another mistake. McLaren need to prioritise Oscar for the rest of the season, surely? – Anon

To describe Piastri as “in another league” from Norris this year is a bit of a stretch, to say the least.

There’s no doubt Piastri has had a better season than Norris so far, and been the more convincing of the two McLaren drivers. Hence his advantage in the championship and in their head-to-head stats in both races and qualifying.

But in terms of outright performance, there is little between the two, and they are more or less swapping the position of the faster McLaren driver each weekend.

The key this year so far is that Piastri is delivering his best on a more consistent basis than Norris. The Australian is beating Norris, not only on the weekends when he is quicker, but also on some of the weekends when the Briton looks like he probably is, because of the errors he is making.

Canada was a case in point. Had Norris strung his qualifying together, he would probably have been ahead of Piastri on the grid, in which case he would likely have finished ahead of him as well.

The same could have been said of Saudi Arabia and Miami. In Jeddah, Norris crashed in qualifying, trying too hard. In Miami, he qualified ahead but tangled with Verstappen on the first lap, allowing Piastri past.

There is no doubting Norris’ speed, but it’s also undeniable that he is making too many mistakes this season. He knows it; the team know it. And they’re trying to help him with it.

Of course, the question is, why is this happening? Is he feeling the pressure from Piastri? Of being in the best car and this being his best chance of a world title so far in his career? A combination of both, and perhaps other factors as well?

Whatever it is, he certainly needs to get out of the headspace he is in and find a way to get into a place where things flow more naturally for him. Where, essentially, he is not over-striving.

As for the question of prioritising Piastri, that goes back to the first answer. Other than in specific circumstances, that’s not how McLaren go racing, and it’s hard to see a strong argument for it at the moment.

The McLaren is not the fastest car every weekend. But it is consistently the fastest car so far this year.

Their drivers are one and two in the championship, and relatively comfortably so. What would be the argument for them to prioritise Piastri in those circumstances?