With six victories and four pole positions to his name this year, the 24-year-old told Autosport he has relished the opportunity to fight for wins on a regular basis.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” he said.

“Firstly, it’s pretty rare that anyone gets this opportunity in their F1 career. So [I’ve] been enjoying being able to fight for wins pretty much week in, week out.

“I feel like I was developing my strengths in my first couple of years, and I feel like this year they’ve come together much more often.”

Pressed to pick a favourite, Piastri singled out Bahrain for its complete weekend execution, with Barcelona a close second.

“Bahrain was just a really, really strong weekend from start to finish,” he said. “Qualifying was really strong, the race as well… that was the biggest gap that I had for the year.

“Barcelona was a similar kind of weekend. I pick those two just on pure performance,” he explained.

On the other end of the spectrum, he said Miami was also a favourite — but for different reasons.

“I think most kind of emotional was probably Miami, just because it was a bit unexpected,” Piastri added. “It was a fun race.”

 

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While much has been made of his improved tyre management, Piastri believes the biggest leap this season has come in qualifying.

“I was making a lot of races more difficult than I wanted to last year, so trying to improve that has naturally made a lot of races look quite different to what I had last year,” he said.

“That was kind of a big focus point of ‘how do I improve that result’. But obviously you can’t just go into it saying, ‘I’m going to qualify better this year’. You need to work out how.

“That’s been a big focus, but I think a lot of the gains I’ve tried to make in chasing that have also transferred to race day as well.”

He said that process has been aided by a strong relationship with his race engineer Tom Stallard, now in its third year.

“Finding exactly what I need, then Tom gets a better understanding of what I need… that relationship has definitely evolved as well. And I think it’s definitely at the strongest it’s ever been.”

Piastri has also been at the heart of McLaren’s title challenge, with the MCL39 proving a potent weapon despite early-season concerns over its trickiness on the limit.

“Our race runs were always very strong, but in qualifying sims, we were genuinely struggling… I’ve been pretty happy with how it’s been. For me, it’s not been a big concern,” he said.

As Piastri and the rest of the F1 grid enjoy the traditional summer break, the Australian holds a nine-point lead over teammate Lando Norris, with the pair accounting for 11 wins so far this season.

With the battle set to intensify over the final ten rounds, McLaren’s much-discussed “papaya rules” remain a talking point — but Piastri says there’s only one that really matters.

“It is literally one rule, which is, don’t crash into each other,” he said. “That’s kind of an unsaid rule in every team.”

With experience leading championships in junior categories, Piastri is unfazed by the pressure — though he admits fighting a teammate for the title is a new challenge.

“In F1 you’ve got the added complication of strategy… that’s been quite a different mentality in some ways,” he explained. “But ultimately, the position I’m in feels very familiar, trying to secure a championship.”

And as for whether he takes it race by race or calculates what’s needed over the season, Piastri is clear.

“It sounds boring, and kind of is boring in some ways, but it is very true. You can’t worry about what’s going to happen in Abu Dhabi… leaving each weekend knowing that I’ve done the absolute maximum I can… that’s all you can ask for,” he said.