Oscar Piastri: 9 F1 Wins and a Title That Slipped Away
Welcome to the Happy Hour Racing Formula 1 Driver Spotlight - where we pull one driver into the garage, look at the whole career, and tell you what makes them tick. This week: the number 81.
The Short Version
Oscar Piastri is the 25-year-old Australian who won three straight junior championships, turned down a Formula 1 seat in public, and then very nearly won the world title in his third season. He has 9 grand prix wins, 28 podiums and 6 poles for McLaren, and in 2025 he led the championship for most of the year before finishing third by 13 points. In 2026 he is fighting a McLaren that has not worked, which makes this weekend at Zandvoort interesting: it is the exact track where he drove the best race of his life a year ago.
Melbourne to England at 14
Oscar Jack Piastri was born on April 6, 2001, in Melbourne, Australia, and grew up in the bayside suburb of Brighton. His father, Chris, built an automotive software company, so the family understood engines. What they did not have was a European racing pipeline, and that is where the talent had to go. At 14, Piastri moved to England as a boarding student to chase a career on the other side of the world. His father flew home to Melbourne six months later.
What followed is one of the cleanest junior records anyone has ever put together. He won the Formula Renault Eurocup in 2019 with R-ace GP. He won the FIA Formula 3 title in 2020 with Prema. He won the FIA Formula 2 title in 2021, with Prema again, as a rookie. Three series, three seasons, three championships, and no driver in history had ever strung those particular three together back to back.
The Tweet That Changed Everything
Then came the strangest chapter of his career. Piastri had no race seat for 2022 and spent the year as Alpine's reserve driver. In August of that year, Alpine put out a press release naming him as its driver for 2023. Piastri had already signed with McLaren a month earlier. His response, posted to social media the same afternoon, is still one of the most-quoted messages in modern F1.
I understand that, without my agreement, Alpine F1 have put out a press release late this afternoon that I am driving for them next year. This is wrong and I have not signed a contract with Alpine for 2023. I will not be driving for Alpine next year.
— Oscar Piastri (@OscarPiastri) August 2, 2022
The FIA's Contract Recognition Board sided with him. He was a free agent, and he went to McLaren. A 21-year-old with zero grand prix starts had just faced down a works team in public and won.
2025: Seven Wins and 13 Points Short
Piastri debuted at the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix. His first win came at the 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix, his second in Azerbaijan two months later, and he closed that season fourth in the standings. Then 2025 happened.
He won seven races that year, took six poles, and stood on the podium 16 times. Both the wins total and the podium total are Australian single-season records. He became the first Australian to lead the drivers' championship since Mark Webber in 2010, and at the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort he took pole, led every lap, set the fastest lap and won, which is the rare sweep known as a grand chelem. Leaving that race he was 34 points clear.
How the 2025 Title Got Away
He did not win again. The lead shrank race by race, and in Las Vegas both McLarens were disqualified after the cars' skid planks were found below the legal minimum thickness, wiping out a fourth-place finish. He answered by winning the Qatar sprint, but the math had already turned. At the Abu Dhabi finale Max Verstappen won the race, Piastri finished second and teammate Lando Norris finished third, which was enough. Norris took the championship by two points over Verstappen. Piastri ended the year third on 410 points, 13 behind his own teammate.
By the Numbers
Every figure below is a Formula 1 career total through the 2026 Hungarian Grand Prix.
2026: The Hardest Year Yet
This season has been brutal, and almost none of it has been about his driving. Formula 1's new rules arrived and McLaren did not get them right. Piastri never even took the start in the first two rounds: he crashed on a reconnaissance lap at his home race in Melbourne after an unexpected engine surge over a kerb, then was pulled off the grid in China with a power unit electrical problem that hit both McLarens.
He salvaged what he could after that. Second in Japan, third in Miami, then a run of fourths and fifths in a car that was not close to the front. At the Hungarian Grand Prix his gearbox failed while Norris was winning from pole, and he was classified 20th. Eleven rounds in he sits seventh on 92 points, no wins, in a season he was widely tipped to win. He signed a deal in early 2025 that keeps him at McLaren through at least 2028, so this is a problem he intends to solve from the inside.
Off the Track
Piastri is famously unbothered. The dry Australian humor and the flat, unhurried radio voice have become part of his appeal, and they are the same in a title fight as they are on a Thursday media day. He is the oldest of four with three younger sisters, he still calls Melbourne home, and his home grand prix draws the biggest crowds he sees all year. For a driver who publicly refused a works F1 seat at 21, he does a very good impression of a man who never gets rattled.
The Bottom Line
Oscar Piastri is not a nearly man. He is a driver who won everything on the way up, took nine grands prix in three seasons, and lost a championship by 13 points in the closest three-way finish in years. The car has let him down in 2026. The record says he will be back in front of it, and Zandvoort this Sunday is as good a place as any to start.
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- McLaren Racing F1 New Era Shadow Beanie
- McLaren F1 Team Snowflake Cuffed Knit Hat
- F1 McLaren Racing Shadow Beanie Hat
See more in the McLaren collection and the full Formula 1 collection. New driver spotlights drop every week.
