Oscar Piastri finished fifth in the Mexico Grand Prix, but lost the F1 championship lead to team-mate Lando Norris

McLaren's Oscar Piastri surrendered the Formula One championship lead to teammate Lando Norris after the Mexico City Grand Prix on Sunday but the Australian sounded an upbeat note about his progress and said he had taken steps to unlock his car's pace.

Oscar Piastri's lead in the Formula 1 championship is shrinking after a tough weekend in Texas. At the United States Grand Prix, his teammate Lando Norris and Red Bull's Max Verstappen gained ground.

After losing the lead of the Formula 1 championship, Oscar Piastri said he has not been able to adapt to the way McLaren's car has changed over the past few races.

For the third year in a row, the Circuit of the Americas (COTA) hosted a sprint race weekend for Formula 1 on the track just outside of Austin, Texas. For the third year in a row, Max Verstappen led every single lap of the COTA sprint race in his Red Bull.

The conspiracy theorists have gone into overdrive after Oscar Piastri claimed "something weird happened" to his McLaren during the Mexico Grand Prix. But the more popular theory is he simply doesn't perform as well at the tracks that feature in the second half of the F1 season, and isn't as in tune with his car as he previously was.

LANDO NORRIS showed he means business in the title fight as he bagged pole position in Mexico City. Meanwhile it was a woeful afternoon for his team-mate Oscar Piastri – who will start the

It carried him 0.262 seconds clear of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton, who was three-tenths adrift. Mercedes George Russell was fourth and Verstappen fifth while Piastri struggled to qualify eighth. If all drivers finish where they start, Norris will take the world title lead from Piastri.