McLaren blown away by Oscar Piastri ‘superpower’ that they never expected to see this season

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Oscar Piastri could become the first McLaren driver since Lewis Hamilton to win the drivers’ championship this season.

McLaren have won back-to-back constructors’ championships with a quarter of the 2025 F1 campaign still to go, highlighting their dominance over the last 18 months.

Oscar Piastri is the man to beat right now, as he goes into the United States Grand Prix with a 22-point lead over Lando Norris.

Max Verstappen is lurking in the background in the championship fight, but victory in Austin for Piastri should put him out of contention.

The 24-year-old has only started 64 Grand Prix in his Formula 1 career, meaning he would be one of the least experienced drivers ever to win a championship if he got over the line.

Norris is only a year older than Piastri, but he made his debut back in 2019 and is nearing 150 race starts.

Jolyon Palmer has wondered if Piastri is becoming ‘paranoid’ with several interesting decisions made by McLaren during recent races seemingly going against him.

However, journalist and commentator Nelson Valkenburg has shared what the Australian has been doing behind the scenes at McLaren that has left the team stunned this season.

READ MORE: Best moments of Oscar Piastri’s F1 career including first podium, win and best races

Oscar Piastri’s unexpected ‘superpower’ has caught McLaren off guard this season

Valkenburg was speaking about Piastri on the Nailing The Apex Podcast and the impact he’s making in the McLaren garage.

He said: “I think Piastri has surprised McLaren with how quickly he solved his own issues, qualifying, race pace.

“Every time he detects a weakness, he just goes about and improves it. And his mentality is a superpower.

“His work ethic apparently is as well. I’ve seen him in the paddock at 11 pm on a European race schedule. Like, what are you doing here?

“Well, I was two-tenths off in free practice. And I think McLaren has been caught off guard this year by the fact that they’ve got equality between the drivers in terms of pace.

“And that is something they didn’t expect.”

READ MORE: All you need to know about McLaren F1 Team from team principal to engine

Oscar Piastri previews the 2025 Formula 1 United States Grand Prix

Piastri heads to Austin with an underwhelming record at the Circuit of the Americas.

In his two previous visits, Piastri has qualified 10th and fifth, retiring on his first visit to COTA before finishing P5 last year.

He will need to do a lot better than that this weekend to dispel any concerns that Norris and Verstappen are getting the better of him.

Previewing the 19th race weekend of the 2025 season, Piastri said in his official pre-race statement: “I’m really looking forward to taking on the Circuit of the Americas, especially with this being a Sprint weekend.

“I’m focused totally on performance and extracting the maximum from both races.

“The track has some cool sections, in particular the high-speed esses, and the layout allows for some good racing. I always enjoy it there, and this weekend should be fun too.”

Piastri was unhappy with a penalty he received at last year’s United States Grand Prix that Verstappen didn’t receive.

The Red Bull driver also got Norris penalised during the closing stages in COTA as well, and a repeat of that is just what Verstappen needs to keep his championship hopes alive.