Piastri responds to rumours linking him to Red Bull as he assesses McLaren’s position in the constructors’ fight

Oscar Piastri has stated that there is “no truth” in rumours linking him to talks over a possible seat at Red Bull in the future, with the Australian insisting that he is “more than happy” to be with McLaren.

Speculation entering into the Mexico City Grand Prix weekend suggested that Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko had hinted that Piastri’s manager Mark Webber was pushing to have discussions with the Milton Keynes squad over the young driver’s future.

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However, when asked about the reports on media day at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, Piastri responded: “I think we all know that Helmut says a lot of things in the press. As far as I’m aware there’s no truth to it.”

Piastri – whose contract with McLaren runs through to the end of 2026 – reiterated that he is content at the Woking outfit, who remain at the top of the constructors’ standings with a 40-point lead over Red Bull.

“I’m very, very happy where I am,” he explained. “The team have supported me massively since I came into F1, they gave me my opportunity in F1. At the moment in the standings we’re in a very happy place, so I am more than happy with where I am at the moment.”

For now the focus of Piastri and the squad will be maintaining that position following a weaker weekend last time out in Austin than they have been accustomed to of late.

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“It was an average weekend, I would say – not terrible, but just not to the high standards I guess we’re used to now, which is in some ways quite a nice thing,” Piastri reflected.

“But definitely some things after the weekend that I think if we went back again, we’d probably try a few things differently. And yeah, just not the smoothest of weekends from my side especially. Not our finest, but still a good haul of points I would say.”

In terms of the pecking order going forward – with Ferrari having moved themselves closer to the battle at the top after a one-two result in the United States Grand Prix – Piastri is confident that McLaren can still be on winning form entering into the final races of the season.

“I think our pace [in Austin] was not as bad as what people thought, it certainly wasn’t terrible,” the two-time race winner said. “[But] when you come from the weekend before [in Singapore], when Lando [Norris] won by 20-something seconds, nothing’s going to look as good as that.

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“I think we’re still pretty positive that we can be winning a lot of races at the end of the year, but Ferrari have looked strong for a while. Red Bull look to be more competitive as well, so the competition is just very, very tight still.

“I don’t think there’s any alarm bells, so to speak, but we do need to be on top of our game. But certainly in the constructors’ championship we’re still in the position to be in which is at the front, but of course we want to try and keep that lead and extend where we can.”