Blasphemy from Oscar Piastri had to be censored on more than one occasion during his frustrating Hungarian Grand Prix. But it was the Australian’s use of the M-word that will fuel speculation about his future at the halfway mark of a disappointing Formula One season.

“Mate, just don’t fucking talk to me now,” Piastri said down his radio to his crew after the moment a possible race victory was lost, when the team’s pit stop strategy left him in traffic and exposed to backmarker incompetence. “Nice of you guys to factor that one in by the way, thanks,” Piastri added.

If the use of “mate” was bad enough, Piastri’s sarcasm revived memories of his pain from last year. Team decisions then appeared to favour Norris, helping the English driver secure the 2025 world title over the Australian whose confidence had been sapped by season’s end.

Under radically new rules this year McLaren have struggled behind Mercedes and Ferrari, but there was optimism after new upgrades for Hungary put Norris on pole and Piastri behind him in third thanks to penalties for Kimi Antonelli and Lewis Hamilton.

The Australian appeared set to take full advantage and looked likely to win his first GP in almost a year – and McLaren’s first for 2026 – when he overtook Norris on the first lap. Piastri’s move was significant on a track widely condemned for its paucity of overtaking opportunities. An hour later, however, he had lost the lead to Norris during their pit stops before a gearbox failure left him marooned on the side of the track.

Piastri now languishes in seventh in the driver’s championship. A year ago he appeared almost certain to be the new world champion and carried the reputation as the best young driver in a generation. Now, the emergence of teenage championship leader Antonelli and even 21-year-old Isack Hadjar – just one place below Piastri – threaten to relegate the Australian’s status, and leave him as this Formula One generation’s nearly man.

“I’m feeling pretty disappointed,” Piastri offered at the end of the race, adding that after the pit stop “pretty much everything that could have gone wrong did”. Yet he was more conciliatory towards his team than his earlier radio outburst. “On the strategy side, you don’t plan a strategy for getting taken out by a backmarker. So I can’t blame the team at all for that.”

Piastri is contracted in papaya until the end of 2028, but he has been drawn into speculation about a possible swap with Max Verstappen. The Dutch driver’s relationship with Red Bull has been tested during the team’s transition following departures of principal Christian Horner and engineer Adrian Newey.

Though Verstappen has now overtaken Piastri on the driver ladder, the McLaren better supports the Australian’s ambition to win races. Piastri’s more diplomatic tone after the race shows he knows this is a workplace that – at least for now – he does not want to torch.

McLaren’s team principal Andrea Stella espoused the harmony in the garage. “We race as a team and today was a well-executed race from a strategic and sporting principles point of view, which wouldn’t be possible without two drivers who fully support our approach,” he said. “The competition between Lando and Oscar was great, fair racing, and we’re very pleased with the respectful approach they showed each other.”

The Formula One circus now takes its three-week summer break, before travelling to the Netherlands. There last year, Piastri won and Norris was a late retirement. It left the Australian with a 34-point lead in the championship.

Less than 12 months later, Piastri offers the most compelling personal study on the grid. He looked near invincible in the first half of 2025, fuelled by what appeared to be unflappable focus and quiet determination. Now he is anything but.

Some of the struggle has been out of his control. All teams have had to adjust to the new power units, which have challenged the convention approach of building and driving race cars. The reliability of the McLaren has also been left wanting, with electronics scuppering hopes in China and Belgium.

Yet Piastri has been consistently out-qualified by an improving Norris, and has failed to secure a place on the front of the grid all season. The English driver was consistently quicker than Piastri in the upgraded McLaren in Hungary, suggesting there will be no easy way back for the Australian to the status he enjoyed a year ago.

Some use last season’s dubious application of McLaren’s so-called “papaya rules” as justification for Piastri’s stumbles. Hungary, however, showed something more significant. As McLaren’s leading driver in the middle of the race he was given pit priority and clean stops, but the incident with Carlos Sainz and Norris’s unrelenting pace highlight how good – and lucky – Piastri must be if he is to return to Formula One’s summit.

Stella told Sky Sports Germany earlier in July that the new cars suit some drivers more than others. “Basically, if you just try to drive too clean, the lap time doesn’t come. You have to attack the car, you have to accept that the car slides, you have to be extremely active. And this is a driving style that comes more normal to Lando than Oscar.”

At Mercedes, the dominance of Antonelli this season over the more experienced George Russell this year prompted the latter to question whether he needed to change his approach. Norris was asked about Russell’s opinion in Hungary and offered an unsympathetic response. “If you’re not ready to adapt to a different car, yeah, then you’re not at a good enough level, simply.”