Yes, that was my initial reaction to the headline I wrote myself. Three rookie errors from a Grand Prix winner over a single race weekend, while comfortably leading the 2025 Drivers’ Championship, suggest he choked under pressure—perhaps even more so than Red Bull and Max Verstappen’s apparent resurgence might indicate.

Or did Oscar Piastri simply ease off the accelerator, opting for consistent podium points rather than risking everything for a perfect qualifying lap and aggressive race strategy? If he did, it suggests his subconscious is no longer driven by fear—and in F1, when you lose that fear factor, you also lose a significant amount of concentration.

So were Piastri’s mistakes at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix—crashing out of contention in qualifying, a stall at the start, dropping to last place, and a crash while trying to claw back positions—simply the result of a lapse in focus? Did the combination of pressure and an all-or-nothing recovery attempt trigger a kind of panic attack?

To choke or not to choke

I’m going to say yes—Piastri has come across as cool, calm, and collected. Despite 2025 being only his second full year as an F1 driver, he has already shown that he is championship material. Which is why the disaster at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix was so unexpected.

It takes time for young drivers to fully adjust to the relentless demands of F1; only a few manage it straight away—think Senna, Schumacher, Alonso, Hamilton, Verstappen. Piastri is one of the few. And even these legends have succumbed to pressure or lapses in focus at some point in their careers. The exception, perhaps, is Fernando Alonso—I can’t recall a race where Alonso has truly choked under pressure.

That being said, Oscar Piastri will no doubt be kicking himself after Azerbaijan. I imagine he’ll be self-motivating with slogans on the walls of his office: “It’s not how you fall, it’s how you get back up again that counts.”

Piastri will need to recover quickly and regain the cool poise he has shown for much of 2025. If he doesn’t, Max Verstappen will surely exploit the opportunity, piling on the pressure even further.