Oscar Piastri rejects F1 title 'trend' despite dwindling advantage

Oscar Piastri has claimed he is "not concerned at all" by seeing Lando Norris slash his F1 drivers' championship advantage from 22 points down to just nine at the summer break.

The McLaren team-mates are locked in an intriguing intra-squad battle for their maiden titles, and the points delta between them has ebbed and flowed all year.

Piastri has held the lead in the standings since the end of the fifth round, the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, but has seen the surplus whittled down by Norris since the Canadian Grand Prix.

When it was put to him that the fight had trended towards the British driver since the trip to Montreal, Piastri diminished the significance of the 25-year-old's recent momentum.

"The biggest lead of the year has been 23, and it’s not moved within 10 points for the last ten races, almost," Piastri told media, including RacingNews365. "So, I’m not really that fussed with that.

"Obviously, it would have been nice to have the extra points, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a trend."

The Australian highlighted how marginal the trip to the Hungaroring was, and how it very easily could have resulted in a 14-point swing in the other direction, something that would have afforded him the 23-point lead Norris held after the season-opening round in Melbourne.

"One second different, and the trend would have looked quite different [after the Hungarian Grand Prix]," the eight-time grand prix winner stated.

"Things happening in the last few races differently could have meant quite a different picture.

"But you can say that about pretty much every race this year and about every championship ever. So, I’m not concerned at all."

There were also pivotal moments elsewhere, which have swung the impetus back and forth, such as Norris' unforced error at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, where he threw away 10 points - points that would have given him the advantage at this stage - or at Silverstone, where Piastri needlessly incurred a penalty which robbed him of victory, which his team-mate claimed.

Despite a couple of small mistakes and missed opportunities, Piastri is pleased with his form so far and expects to replicate those performances in the final 10 rounds of the campaign, which looks set to head down to the wire in Abu Dhabi.

"I think the pace for the first half of the year has been very, very strong, and I think the last few races as well have been very good," he said.

"I feel like I’ve driven a lot of strong races, and it’s been very tightly fought. So, I expect more of the same after the break."

How the points gap has fluctuated between the McLaren drivers can be found below.