The 24-year-old, who led the world championship for 15 rounds before being overtaken by Lando Norris at the previous race in Mexico, has faced mounting scrutiny following a dip in form that’s seen Norris and Max Verstappen close in.
Jos Verstappen, father of the reigning world champion, suggested that Piastri should take a tougher stance within McLaren, telling Dutch publication De Telegraaf he would “bang my fist on the table” if he were in the Australian’s position.
“I find it quite strange what’s happening at McLaren,” Verstappen said.
“Piastri can’t have suddenly forgotten how to drive, right? If I were him, or his manager [Mark Webber], I’d bang my fist on the table internally at least once.
“Because right now everyone is wondering whether he can handle the pressure – and that’s not good for your reputation.”
Piastri, however, insisted he felt no need to change his approach.
The McLaren driver said the team has always encouraged open communication and fairness between its drivers as both continue to fight for the championship.
“I think for me, we’re always very open with each other in terms of what we think, whether we think things have been fair, whether we think the right decisions have been made,” Piastri said.
“And from that side of things we can stand up for ourselves and I feel very comfortable doing that.
“And that’s very much encouraged by the team to kind of make our point for ourselves individually.”
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He acknowledged the complexities of competing for a title within the same team but dismissed any suggestion of bias toward Norris.
“It’s obviously a difficult dynamic to manage when you’ve got the two cars in the same team fighting for a championship that only one car can win,” he continued.
“There’s obviously naturally going to be difficulties with that, but I respect the team allowing us to both try and fight for the drivers’ championship.”
Piastri added that he wants to win “on my own merit” and said he feels fully supported by McLaren to do so.
“Obviously if you pick one driver, you’ve got a 50% chance that you’re not going to be that driver,” he added.
“So I think for me we’re very much encouraged and welcomed to stand up for ourselves already, so I don’t think anything needs to change.”
After a series of challenging weekends in Austin and Mexico, Piastri said both his struggles and McLaren’s fluctuating form were explainable.
He believed circuit characteristics and tyre behaviour played a key role in the team’s recent difficulties.
“I think Austin and Mexico are a bit different to quite a lot of other circuits we’ve been to,” he said.
“To have two weekends where the soft tyre in Mexico was a C5 and – apart from the C6, which is kind of off on its own – to have the softest tyres be the tyre to be on in qualifying and the race is not that usual and that has been a big difference from earlier in the season.”
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella backed his driver, suggesting that the low-grip nature of recent tracks may have exaggerated the gap between Piastri and Norris.
“In this regime, you have to drive the car in a way that adapts to the fact that the car slides a lot and can slide and produce lap time,” Stella said.
“And this is not necessarily the way in which Oscar feels naturally that he is producing lap time.”
Piastri said he was optimistic about rediscovering his early-season form this weekend in Brazil.
“The potential has been there every weekend,” he said.
“We just need to try and execute a good weekend.”
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