Oscar Piastri feels "comfortable" standing up for himself within McLaren, in response to Jos Verstappen's comments to Dutch media suggesting that the Australian should be more demanding in pursuit of a first Formula 1 title.
Ex-F1 driver Verstappen told De Telegraaf that Piastri, or his manager Mark Webber, should "bang [their] fist on the table" having suggested that McLaren had been putting more weight behind Lando Norris' championship charge of late.
Piastri refuted the idea that McLaren was favouring Norris, stating that it was "not the case" that McLaren had started to gravitate towards one driver - while he felt surprised by the onset of many of his recent issues, he added that "everything is explainable".
Following his and McLaren's exploration of his recent struggles, Piastri now feels that he's much more prepared for any similar situations should they arise in the final four rounds of the season.
"I think for me, we're always very open with each other in terms of what we think, whether we think things have been fair, whether we think the right decisions have been made," Piastri stated.
"And from that side of things we can stand up for ourselves and I feel very comfortable doing that. And that's very much encouraged by the team to kind of make our point for ourselves individually.
"But I think it's obviously a difficult dynamic to manage when you've got the two cars in the same team fighting for a championship that only one car can win.
"There's obviously naturally going to be difficulties with that, but I respect the team allowing us to both try and fight for the drivers' championship. I think for myself I want to go out there and try and win the championship knowing that I did it on my own merit and doing the things that I could do in my control.
"And obviously if you pick one driver, you've got a 50% chance that you're not going to be that driver. So I think for me we're very much encouraged and welcomed to stand up for ourselves already, so I don't think anything needs to change."
Team principal Andrea Stella suggested after Mexico that Piastri's immediate form had been hurt by low-grip conditions.
Piastri added that his recent difficulties at the United States and Mexico City grands prix had largely been a function of the circuits and their effect on the McLaren package; while not venturing too much into specifics, he did suggest that there was a disconnect between his driving, the softer suite of tyres, and how the car uses the tyre.
He stated that, by changing his driving style, he was able to bridge some of that disconnect.
"I think Austin and Mexico are a bit different to quite a lot of other circuits we've been to," he explained.
"I think even just when you look at the tyre usage on both of those weekends: to have two weekends where the soft tyre in Mexico was a C5 and - apart from the C6, which is kind of off on its own - to have the softest tyres, be the tyre to be on in qualifying and the race is not that usual and that has been a big difference from earlier in the season.
"So I think there is something that's been a bit different. I don't know what exactly that is, but I think it's just been in some circuits maybe a corner or two where you need to adapt to things like that and drive a bit differently.
"But the last couple of weekends it's been you've needed to drive differently all the time in a way that I've not had to for the whole year.
"I've just been trying to understand more of what I need to shift to and how that feels has been the biggest learning curve with that.
"But I think when you look at the tyre usage we've had, things have been a little bit different. I don't think anything has changed necessarily, but there's been something a bit different with the last couple of weekends compared to the majority of races."
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