Piastri’s Baku win demonstrates McLaren’s ‘No. 2’ is a champion in the making

BAKU, Azerbaijan — Oscar Piastri described Sunday’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix as the “most stressful afternoon” of his life, but it will likely be remembered as the defining moment of his early McLaren career. He found the perfect balance of aggression and precision to defeat Charles Leclerc — an opponent who is arguably the fastest driver ever to thread a Formula 1 car between the unforgiving barriers of the Baku street circuit.

Although his Lap 20 overtake on Leclerc was the key to victory, his defence of the lead for the following 31 laps was no less impressive. Any stress that was building in the 23-year-old’s cockpit during that time wasn’t visible to the watching world as he ran his McLaren within millimetres of the walls and held off every advance Leclerc attempted.

Prior to the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, there was little doubt that Piastri had the potential to pull off such a performance, but after the messy circumstances of his maiden win in Hungary (where McLaren’s pit strategy made for an awkward team order), Sunday’s awe-inspiring drive seemed like a far more fitting way for the Australian to prove his mettle.

Help from Norris

The main story surrounding McLaren ahead of the weekend was the team’s decision to give priority to Lando Norris in racing situations involving the two drivers. Piastri accepted the position as de facto No. 2 driver during Thursday’s media day but knew one way he could override any awkward team radio calls was by getting as many cars between him and Norris as possible. That proved a lot easier than expected when an unfortunately timed yellow flag in qualifying forced Norris to abort his Q1 lap and saw him miss the cut for Q2.

With Norris starting from 15th on the grid, McLaren was caught between wanting a bit of Baku chaos to help him up the order but not enough to unsettle Piastri’s very real chances of victory. Remarkably it got both.

There was a twist of irony along the way, however, as Norris ended up helping Piastri rather than the other way round. Red Bull’s Sergio Pérez pitted from fourth place relatively early on Lap 13, giving him the performance advantage of fresh tyres to undercut Piastri.

As Pérez’s tyres came up to temperature and Piastri stayed out to try to match the strategy of Leclerc, there was a very real chance the performance of the Red Bull’s fresh rubber would see him take second place from the McLaren. In pitting early, though, Pérez emerged on the track behind Norris, who was…