The young Australian is a gifted driver racing in an exceptional car, but was prone to error this season and in 2026 will face new adversity
Tumbling from the Formula One precipice, ultimately Oscar Piastri was not the first Australian in 40 years to be crowned world champion. The man from Melbourne finished a narrow third in the driver standings this year behind his McLaren teammate Lando Norris and four-time champion Max Verstappen. Now, he is back to square one.
Midway through the season Piastri lead Norris by a comfortable 34 points and Verstappen by a chasm. But a run of six rounds without a podium left him on the outside looking in, and by the end at Abu Dhabi he finished 13 points behind his teammate.
The slender margin makes it tempting to find where those points might have been lost. McLaren’s order to switch positions in Monza cost the Australian six points in the battle with his teammate. The decision not to pit Piastri in Qatar during a safety car? Probably even more. Across a long season however, the Australian was responsible for his spin in Melbourne, and his accident in Azerbaijan. McLaren chief executive Zak Brown may be hard to like, but he is also hard to blame.
Piastri has been measured in his reflections about the season, that it was full of lessons on how to deal with adversity “from different directions”. The tracks, the travel, the sponsorship obligations, the backmarkers slowing at the end of the straight: these are all constants standing between an F1 driver and their ultimate goal. Like Verstappen, ever-present.
