Winless for a year in F1 - what’s happened to former title contender Oscar Piastri?

After his Dutch Grand Prix victory a year ago, Oscar Piastri appeared destined to become a Formula 1 world champion, but fast-forward 12 months and that remains his last win. 

Piastri has not started this season as well as he did the 2025 campaign, which, for large parts of, he was in control of and looked the favourite for the world title until a dramatic late capitulation to team-mate Lando Norris. 

McLaren has had a very tough start to 2026 and the regulation overhaul and this must be taken into account. After triumphing to both world championships last year, the Woking squad failed to win any of the opening 10 races, before mid-season car upgrades transformed its fortunes, leading to back-to-back victories either side of the F1 summer break.

But those were both scooped up by reigning world champion Norris. Piastri was in contention for victory in Hungary until traffic woes and a gearbox failure ruined his hopes, but in the Netherlands, he was a step behind his team-mate all weekend. 

Piastri dominated at Zandvoort last year but this time he finished a distant sixth and over half a minute behind Norris after his pace faded having pitted for a second set of hards tyres. 

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella was quick to defend Piastri’s Dutch Grand Prix drop-off, insisting it was not all to do with his driving. 

“I think in the race there were two factors that affected Oscar,” Stella explained. “One was the fact, and this is a team responsibility, that when we pitted to cover Russell, actually we lost the position to Russell because of a slow pit stop. And this is up to the team, not up to Oscar. 

“And then this second stint on hard tyres, we were not able to switch these tyres on. They stayed permanently in a regime of very, very low grip, which we didn't see in the first stint. So, there's a couple of things that we need to work on.

“But I would also add to this that we are in a phase of Formula 1 in which we have at least three teams that are within one tenth of a second. And as soon as things are not optimised, then you may have a very significant positional loss.

“If you're not optimised, now you are P6. It's very brutal from this point of view, so I think we just have to keep working with Oscar on all the opportunities and I'm happy with the improvements that I've seen during this weekend, and I am sure that there will be even more for the rest of the season.”

There has been a major discrepancy between the McLaren drivers this term, and while that has been exacerbated by the fact Piastri didn’t start the first two races of the season, and was hampered by reliability problems in Budapest, the Australian has clearly been struggling for performance. 

That is reflected in the fact Piastri has just two podium finishes to Norris’s four (including two wins) and sits three places and 55 points behind the Briton in the championship standings with 11 scheduled races remaining. 

After a difficult race at Zandvoort, Piastri worryingly admitted to Sky Sports F1: “Disappointing, obviously. I think the first lap was good, or after the red flag was good, and then the first stint felt okay, and then after that I had nothing. I don’t know why – plenty to look into.”

Piastri looks a shadow of his former F1 title contender self. So what has gone wrong this year? 

It seems Piastri’s struggles in a car that appears better suited to Norris can be put down to a multitude of factors. 

Firstly, there is the controversial change of engine regulations introduced for this year. The need for drivers to top up the battery has potentially neutralised one of Piastri’s biggest strengths in high-speed corners, which was an area he held an edge over Norris for much of 2025. 

The changes have also made the 2026 cars more skittish and unpredictable. We are now seeing drivers hustle the new generation of cars through corners a lot more frequently this season, and that goes against Piastri’s naturally smoother driving style. 

Perhaps Piastri’s biggest weakness is his low-grip struggles and that is something that has been more apparent in 2026 with the cars having less downforce than last year. That, combined with Norris being more comfortable than Piastri in low-grip conditions, has at times widened the performance gap between the McLaren drivers. 

Another element is that Norris has simply elevated himself to another level since claiming his maiden world title and has been one of the standout drivers so far this season. 

“I think last year we had seen already with Oscar that from a technical driving point of view, when the car has this low level of grip like we saw last year for instance in Mexico or in Austin, he needs to adapt the way he drives, the way he thinks, the driving, his expectations,” Stella said. 

“This requires a bit of mental effort, which gets him to lose a couple of tenths of a second, because you sort of have to process rather than drive through pure instinct because what happens is what you expect.

“So, I think it's one of those cases in which you have to adapt your natural driving style to the demand of the car. So, it stays in the space of driving and in the space of the technical side of things. I don't think it has anything to do with any psychological kind of opportunity. This is purely technical.”

Not all is lost for Piastri and it is not as if he has suddenly forgotten how to drive and lost all of his ability. While Piastri’s performance trend in 2026 has been alarming, it would be foolish to write him off just yet. 

Piastri’s personal recovery quest should be aided as McLaren’s car improves thanks to further upgrades, helping him to better find the sweet spot and operating window for the MCL40 that he has so far been missing.