Oscar Piastri issues F1 denial after major Lando Norris upset

Oscar Piastri says he is not intentionally slow at the start of F1 weekends after springing a major surprise on Lando Norris.

At Zandvoort, Norris became the first driver to top all three practice sessions in 2025, and has now finished P1 in seven of the 15 FP1s, and been in the top three at 12 of them. 

In contrast, Piastri has topped FP1 three times, with just seven appearances in the top three. 

After practice, Norris appeared favourite to land a crucial pole, but in Q3, Piastri usurped his team-mate by just 0.012s to inflict a crucial defeat, although it was later made academic by Norris's engine failure late in the race.

The Australian has often grown into F1 weekends, peaking at the right moment in qualifying, but has denied it is a trick he is deploying on purpose, at least some of the time.

"It’s happened a few times this year where it started a bit slow and then got better as the weekend went on," Piastri told media, including RacingNews365. 

"The difference from this year to last year is that last year, those weekends that started slow, the middle was slow, and the end was slow. I think it’s just been good to actually find the time as the weekend’s gone on. 

"Is it an ideal way? Am I doing it on purpose? Not always. I’m trying to build up to things, of course, but was hoping to build up a bit quicker than I did this weekend.

"I got there just in the end in Q3, but I didn’t go into qualifying the most optimistic, so was maybe a little bit slow to get there, but I felt very happy with where I was going into qualifying, not expecting the world, just trying to do my best and see what happened.

"In the end, that was enough, and a similar thing [in the race].

"I'm very happy from that side of things, and I think that part is probably the ‘Oscar-like weekend’."