Former F1 driver Martin Brundle believes this weekend's Singapore Grand Prix will show if Oscar Piastri has the nerve to win an F1 title, following his two crashes in Baku.
Piastri crashed in Q3 and then again on the opening lap of the Azerbaijan GP, resulting in his title advantage taking a hit. Lando Norris has moved to 25 points adrift, while Max Verstappen is 69 points behind.
Much of Piastri's title lead has been built on the Australian making very few mistakes this season, unlike his McLaren team-mate.
Based on that, 2009 world champion Jenson Button was surprised to see Piastri make the same error twice in Azerbaijan, resulting in his two crashes, something he described as "unusual".
Discussing the impact of Piastri's crashes on the driver, Button told Sky F1: "That's going to be the interesting thing, how it affects him, because if he can write it off as a tough weekend, which hopefully he can, he will be out strong again.
"But yeah, it was unusual, two times the same incident, which is kind of weird. When you watch it, you think, 'Oh, he's still carrying throttle'. It looks like he's still got forward motion.
"It's not slowing down as it should, but twice, it's very unusual for someone of his calibre."
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Piastri remains in control
With Norris having crashed in Canada and retired in Zandvoort following a technical failure, Piastri was in a position ahead of Baku where he could afford a retirement.
However, he has now moved into a position where he cannot afford a repeat of the previous race, as Norris could move level in the title fight.
As highlighted by former F1 driver Brundle, Piastri remains in control of the championship, in what is a seven-race fight to the finish.
Asked if Piastri's Baku crashes were down to the pressure of being chased in the title fight, Brundle said: "Probably, we always think he's very horizontal. We're about to find out, as Jenson said, I think he'll be fine.
"It's a seven-race championship, plus a couple of sprints to the end of the year. He's got a race in his pocket over his team-mate and nearly three races in his pocket over Max Verstappen. So he's still sitting in a very good position.
"I think it's less painful now to have a tough weekend than it used to be when there were 15 or 16 events in a season.
"Now there are 24 I think you can get away with one tough weekend, but he certainly doesn't need two."
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