After two races, McLaren has emerged as a strong favourite for both the constructors’ and drivers’ titles.

Many predict the championship fight will quickly narrow into a two-horse race between the McLaren pairing.

Lando Norris currently heads the drivers’ competition with Piastri fourth, 10 points down on his teammate.

The Australian dominated the Chinese Grand Prix last time out after a mistake in tricky wet conditions in Australia to start the year proved costly.

Running second in Melbourne, Piastri fell outside the points before rallying back to ninth by the chequered flag, the race won by Norris.

Last year, Max Verstappen won the title off the back of a strong early run before McLaren and Norris closed in once the championship reached Europe.

“As much as we say that Max won the championship, as much as I said it last week that Max won the championship at the start of the season, he also hung on to it at the end,” Piastri said.

“He didn’t really lose any points to Lando or anyone at the end of the season when he didn’t have the strongest car.

“Those kind of weekends, where we maximise the performance, that’s what it’s all about.

“And they just did a very good job in the first part of the year of maximising it when they had a car capable of winning, and maximising their car when they were capable of finishing fourth or finishing fifth.”

$40 million Piastri contract to scare off rival interest

Piastri is a championship-winner, having taken three titles on the bounce during his junior career.

However, this season offers him a first opportunity to duke it out for the world championship.

While that in itself is a new experience, he at least has his early career successes to offer guidance.

It’s that which leaves him comfortable with his current deficit to Norris.

“Yes, they can be won and then lost at the start of the year, but they can also be won and lost at the end of the year,” Piastri said of building a championship-winning campaign.

“The first six races are just as important as the last six, but obviously the last six you get a much better picture of where everyone sits.

“I’ve had plenty of championships myself where you look at the gaps and where you’ve lost points.

“You generally don’t look at where in the year they came, you just look at the fact that you did have points that you lost through the season.

“It’s not really about when it happens.

“Even in that situation later in the year, you’re always trying to just maximise every weekend.”

That’s the approach the 23-year-old has adopted as he focuses on each individual event more than the bigger picture.

“I mean, you never want to give any advantage away, whether it’s lap time, points, you never want to give it away if you don’t have to,” Piastri said.

“So of course I want to try and reverse that gap that we have, but with 22 races to go, it would be a pretty stressful year if you’re worrying about that gap already.

“For me, it’s just trying to make sure I execute every weekend to the best that I can, and I feel like the first two weekends of the year have been good examples of that.

“If you do that, then the points will naturally take care of itself.”

McLaren identifies areas for Piastri improvement

Piastri heads into this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix on the crest of a wave after a dominant performance in Shanghai.

After taking his first F1 pole position in qualifying, he only ceded the race lead during the pit stop cycle in what was, by his own admission, the most comprehensive performance of his career.

“Melbourne and China have both been two very good events; one with the result to show for it and one without,” he said.

“I’ve been happy with how the whole season’s been going so far.

“There’s been some things in Melbourne that I wanted to work on from the last two years as well, and I felt like I worked on those and was competitive there.

“Then China obviously spoke for itself in terms of the results.

“I kind of said in pre-season this year that I didn’t feel like there was necessarily a hole left in my weaknesses as a driver, it was about just making sure that the kind of sips along the way were filled in.

“Obviously, there’s been a very small sample size, but I’ve been happy that, especially on one track that I struggled at a lot, the performance was so different 12 months later.

“Trying to maintain that level of performance is what’s going to be important.”