Portugal Colonial - Piastri vows to learn 'tough lessons' after Baku disaster

The Australian put his McLaren into the barriers twice at the Baku circuit, once in practice and then again on the first lap of the race after a jump start relegated him to the back of the field.

It ended a run of 34 successive points-scoring finishes for the 24-year-old and could have had worse consequences, but his teammate and main title rival Lando Norris finished only seventh.

"We don't want to have weekends like Baku and we know we can't afford to have weekends like Baku," Piastri said ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix on Sunday.

"Certainly from my side of things there were some tough lessons to take.

"But I think as a team we kind of recognised a few opportunities from the weekend to try and improve. So that's always an important thing."

Four-time world champion Max Verstappen won back-to-back grands prix in Italy and Azerbaijan to cut the gap to Piastri to 69 points with seven races and three sprints to go.

With 25 points for each GP win and eight more for a sprint, Piastri admitted there is enough time left in the season for the resurgent Red Bull driver to pile on the pressure.

"Based on the last couple of races I think Red Bull and Max will be strong again," said Piastri, who vowed to put his "messy driving" in Baku behind him.

"There's nothing revolutionary that needs to change or that I am going to change," he said ahead of the 18th race of the 24-race season on Singapore's street circuit.

"For 16 the 17 weekends what I've been doing has worked very well. If I make sure I stay focused on the things that have gone well, then it will continue to go that way."

A.Aguiar--PC