Oscar Piastri reveals unexpected upside of being out of F1 title fight

Novembro 11, 2026 lojamais44@gmail.com

Oscar Piastri says he misses the pressure of fighting for the Formula 1 world championship.

The McLaren driver led the standings for much of last year and was in a season-long battle against his team-mate Lando Norris for the title. A late-season challenge from Red Bull’s Max Verstappen saw Piastri finish third in the standings, while Norris secured the title and Verstappen finished second.

But this year has been very different for the Australian driver, who currently sits seventh in the drivers’ standings, 94 points behind Norris with three races remaining.

“Yes and no,” he said when asked by RacingNews365 whether missing out on the title had been a blow. “I want to be in a championship fight every year if I can be, but also, it’s definitely a bit more relaxed this year. Obviously, we’re not wanting to be in this position, but there’s not quite the same stress.

“But that stress that you have in a championship fight is the feeling you want because it means you’re fighting for something that is what your goal is. I am missing that feeling this year for sure, and it adds a bit of extra intensity and things like that.

“But yeah, it’s not all… there are some things that are a little bit easier when you’re not in a championship.”

Oscar Piastri, McLaren

Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images

McLaren has struggled to match the pace it showed in the last two seasons under F1’s new regulations, although the Woking outfit has made a decent jump in performance in recent races, with Norris winning in Brazil.

“It was clear at the beginning of the season that they were going to be quite different, but mainly from the power unit side of things,” he said.

“The actual cars themselves are smaller, they have less downforce, so of course they’re always going to be different, but I think the first few races we were really occupied with the power unit and how to get the most out of that.

“After the first few races, and especially after they tweaked some of the rules, it became a bit more normal, and that’s when we really dug deep into what the car itself is like.

“It wasn’t that easy to drive, and it’s still not been easy to drive, even now. So, pretty early on, we identified that it was going to be challenging.

“It took us a while to understand exactly what needed to change, and then trying to actually change it is tough.

“But we’re making progress with it slowly, and that’s all we can keep trying to do. So yeah, that’s been the biggest thing. We recognised pretty early on that the car had some things that were tricky to manage.”