Piastri: When your teammate wins, finishing fifth is nothing extravagant

Piastri has been struggling for performance lately, while Norris was on an upward trend, which finally meant that he now leads the Drivers' Championship, albeit by one point.

The writing was on the wall for Piastri from the start of the weekend in Mexico City, as he seemed to struggle with his eighth place in qualifying, which was no surprise as a result. He started the race from seventh after Carlos Sainz served a five-place grid penalty.

Piastri did not have a decent start and dropped down the order, and while he did some overtakes to get closer to the top, he then started to struggle when trying to pass the faster cars, and he could not pass the superb Ollie Bearman, who finished in fourth.

"I felt like the whole race I was right behind someone and struggling with the dirty air," the Australian said. "That was pretty difficult. For me the biggest thing is trying to learn the things I wanted to learn today.

“Yesterday it became obvious after the session that there were a few things I needed to change pretty majorly in how I was driving. Today [Sunday] was about trying to limit the damage, but also trying to learn some things about that. If I’ve made some progress with that, I’ll be happy.

“Obviously when your teammate wins the race, finishing fifth is nothing that extravagant," Piastri admitted.

Piastri delved more into his recent struggles that saw him drop to second, with Max Verstappen—third in Mexico—now 35 points behind him in the Drivers' Championship.

He revealed: "I’ve just had to drive very differently the last couple of weekends—or I’ve not driven differently when I should have.

“I think that’s been a little bit strange to get my head around because I’ve been driving exactly the same as I have all year.

“It’s just the last couple of weekends the car or the tyres or something required quite a different way of driving. I’ve just not really gone to that. I’ve tried to change it up a bit today, and once we analyze if it’s effective or not, that will hopefully help see some progress.

"The car's obviously not changed for a while, so it's nothing to do with the car," the 24-year-old insisted. "Given how the pace has differentiated, clearly Lando has found it easier to dial into that, and I haven’t.

“It’s important to remember the other 19 races, and the way I’ve been driving has been working pretty well. It’s about adding some tools to the toolbox, rather than reinventing myself," Piastri concluded.

(Quotes from Sky Sports F1)