Motor racing-Piastri still not comfortable with 34-point lead

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By Alan Baldwin

ZANDVOORT, Netherlands (Reuters) -McLaren’s Oscar Piastri played down his 34-point lead in the Formula One championship on Sunday and said he still did not feel comfortable.

The Australian took his seventh win in 15 races to forge further ahead after closest title rival and teammate Lando Norris suffered the agony of retirement from the Dutch Grand Prix with a smoking car.

The margin means Piastri can finish second in the next four races even if Norris wins them all, with five to come after that, and still retain the overall lead.

Not that he had any intention of doing so.

“There’s still a long way to go. I need to keep pushing and trying to win races still. I wouldn’t say it’s a very comfortable margin,” Piastri told reporters at seaside Zandvoort.

“As we saw today, it can change with one DNF (non-finish) very, very quickly. So this far out from the end of the year, it’s not a comfortable gap.”

Seven wins in a season is already the stuff of champions, several of whom have won titles with fewer than that, and Piastri has been on the podium 13 times already in 2025.

His nine career F1 wins now match the haul of his manager and compatriot Mark Webber and Sunday was his first ‘grand slam’ in which he started from pole, set the fastest lap and led every lap to the chequered flag.

Norris has won five times with 12 podium appearances.

“I controlled the race when I needed to and obviously it was incredibly unfortunate for Lando at the end, but I felt like I was in control of that one and just used the pace when I needed to,” said Piastri of his day’s work.

“The start of this weekend was looking like a difficult one and (I) managed to get it together in qualifying. I was happy with the pace I had today. Very, very happy.

“A couple of safety cars spiced it up a little bit, and we weathered it all.”

(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Toby Davis)