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.
But Piastri’s comments highlight how some adversity has been coming from his own garage. He told reporters on Sunday nothing will change next season around the level of competition within McLaren, and Norris will not “become Superman” even if he is now world champion. The papaya rulebook might need a rewrite, or the rubbish bin. “I’m expecting full fairness from the team and equality going forwards,” he told reporters after the Abu Dhabi race.
At age 24, the Australian is just getting started in Formula One. Norris – himself only 26 – said this week his teammate will “at some point, get the better of me”. The pair both finished 2025 with seven race wins, and were hard to separate over their performances in qualifying and sprints. Norris might have won the title, but he did not do enough to show he is in a different class to Piastri, even if he did claim at his championship celebrations: “I feel like I drove at a level I don’t think other people can match”.
Beyond Norris, there is adversity Piastri didn’t face this year that he will in 2026. Radically different F1 regulations will bring changes to the power unit, chassis and aerodynamics. The McLarens’ existing engineering advantage, underscored by back-to-back constructors’ titles, made far more of a difference to the seasons of Norris and Piastri than either’s driving talent. The uncertainty around the pecking order under next season’s rules, which are also designed to encourage overtaking, leaves the 2026 title race wide open.
On one hand, that means Piastri might not get a better chance to win a championship. He fumbled the title from the cockpit of the fastest car, with a 34-point lead on his nearest rival in the second half of a season. Verstappen, racing for a new-look Red Bull team, now without long-time advisor Helmut Marko, will lead a field sure to improve.
On the other, McLaren with all their resources and technical wherewithal are unlikely to become terrible overnight. Piastri is still one of Formula One’s younger drivers, and will be well-placed to adapt to the modified cars. In the time since Norris has been at McLaren, Piastri has driven for Alpine and in other classes, winning F3 and F2 championships.
Brown told Piastri after he crossed the line in Abu Dhabi they would “go again” next year, praising the Australian – even as he was coming to terms with personal disappointment – as a “team player”. It was a backhanded compliment, and one roundly criticised, but one that is for now accurate. 2026 will show whether Piastri can be something more.
