Ralf Schumacher saw something ‘very dangerous’ when watching Oscar Piastri at the Mexican Grand Prix

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Oscar Piastri has not finished on a podium in the past four rounds, and only securing P5 in the 2025 Mexico City Grand Prix has cost him the lead in the drivers’ standings.

The 24-year-old had not endured such a barren podium run throughout the 2025 F1 season before the Azerbaijan GP in September. Piastri last failed to finish on the podium across four successive Grands Prix a year ago between the 2024 United States GP and Las Vegas GP.

But unlike in 2024, the McLaren man’s worst run of 2025 so far started when Piastri crashed out of the Azerbaijan GP when he did not get over also jumping the start of the race. Piastri then came P4 in the Singapore GP, P5 in the United States GP and P5 in the Mexico City GP.

Add in Piastri’s P3 in the Italian GP, for his most recent rostrum, and title rivals Lando Norris and Max Verstappen have both outscored the Australian through the past five rounds. Now, Norris leads Piastri atop the F1 drivers’ championship by a point, with Verstappen 36 adrift.

Ralf Schumacher sees ‘very dangerous’ signs that Oscar Piastri is looking for ‘excuses’ at McLaren

Ralf Schumacher now fears that Piastri’s plight, which fell to a new low while Norris won the Mexico City GP with a 42.065-second lead over his teammate in P5, is a “dangerous” sign of the Melbourne native feeling that things are changing around him for the worse at McLaren.

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Piastri qualified 0.588s off Norris’ Mexico City GP pole time to also finish Q3 in P8, but a grid penalty for Carlos Sainz let him start from P7. And Schumacher thinks it likely has not helped Piastri that his manager, Mark Webber, is “constantly” on the phone amid a worrying period.

Schumacher said on Sky Germany’s Backstage Boxengasse: “[You can see] that he has the feeling that things have changed around him. And that is very, very dangerous.

“Of course, if you go around looking for excuses, perhaps saying the car is completely different or something’s wrong, and then see Webber constantly on the phone, then you can get the feeling from the outside that you’re no longer entirely satisfied.

“And that would, of course, be fatal. So, now it’s up to [the McLaren team] management to say, ‘Come on, concentrate’.”

Ralf Schumacher shuts down suggestions that McLaren favour Lando Norris over Oscar Piastri

Piastri is enduring by far the worst period of his 2025 F1 title bid, to see what was a 34-point lead over Norris become a one-point deficit and what was a 104-point lead over Verstappen shrink to 35 points over five rounds. Now, he is playing catch-up for the first time since April.

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Issues have snowballed since producing a weekend to forget in Baku, as Piastri fumed when Norris banged wheels in the Singapore GP and the Australian also collided with the Briton in the COTA Sprint. His lack of pace at the Mexico City GP was then just his latest blow so far.

It can also be argued that McLaren ordering Piastri to yield P2 to Norris in the Italian GP was the true start of his plight. The Woking outfit’s actions at Monza and then in Singapore after refusing to intervene also caused suggestions that McLaren are favouring Norris over Piastri.

But Schumacher has shut down the claims that McLaren are prioritising Norris’ title bid over Piastri’s. The ex-Williams F1 driver believes it would make “no sense” for the papaya crew to favour the 25-year-old, who made his debut for McLaren in 2019 and helped the team grow.

Schumacher added: “What reason do McLaren have to favour one or the other? None at all. It makes no sense for any team to give one or the other driver a bad car.”