Oscar Piastri makes admission about recent F1 form: 'I definitely have not been...'

Oscar Piastri has conceded he has not been "in a state of flow" for most of the F1 season as he struggles to get comfortable with the championship's new-generation cars.

Piastri has gone winless through the opening 20 grands prix, whilst Lando Norris has taken three victories. His McLaren team-mate's latest success in São Paulo, where the Australian finished sixth, extended the gap between them to 94 points.

It marks a significant change from last year's title challenge, when Piastri won seven races and established a 34-point advantage over Norris before slipping behind both the Briton and Max Verstappen, finishing 13 points short of the championship.

Having thrived in the previous ground-effect machinery, he explained that adapting to the new power units initially masked difficulties with the handling of his MCL40.

"It's been challenging for sure," Piastri told the Up To Speed podcast when addressing his season. "I think there's probably been two challenges this year.

"The power units, definitely. That was a massive reset and unlearning and rewiring a lot of things you've learned since you were a kid.

"But I think once we got our heads around that, then actually understanding the behaviour of the cars as well is quite different.

"So, I felt like at the beginning of the year, actually, we were doing a really good job of getting on top of some of the quirks, let's say, of how you needed to drive to get lap time from the power unit and use your battery efficiently and stuff.

"And then once the rules changed a little bit and it became a little bit easier, that kind of got put on the side and actually went back to the normal things you would look out for in terms of the way the car behaves and things like that.

"It was once we put all the power unit stuff to the side and we focused a bit more on what the car was actually doing that there was there was a few things that weren't quite as nice as I would have liked. And it's been tough this year to get on top of those as well."

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Piastri missing 'state of flow'

Piastri's podiums in Japan and Miami remain his only top-three grand prix finishes this season, with the 25-year-old describing how the demands of the latest cars have prevented driving from feeling instinctive.

"You ask any racing driver, or probably any athlete... When they're performing at their best, and everything comes easily, you're not thinking about what you're doing," Piastri added.

"Like you're just in this state of flow, basically. And I definitely have not been in a state of flow for most of this year.

"Even the cars themselves, especially compared to the previous cars we've driven, [are] a quite different beast. So, that's taken quite a bit of getting used to, for sure.

"And again, I've had to learn how to drive in pretty different ways. Also, racing people is a bit different now that there's no more DRS; everything's with the battery. So, you've got to spread your energy and your thought process out over more areas now, which certainly doesn't help things either."