Oscar Piastri opens up on "painful" toll of 2025

Oscar Piastri says there were two things he could have done after the painful ending to his 2025 season; sit and mope or use it to his advantage.

F1 fans will be thrilled to hear that the 24-year-old has opted to do the latter.

Having led the Drivers’ Championship for majority of the season, Piastri’s run of form with McLaren came crashing down in early September with a disastrous outing at Baku which was compounded by a controversial team orders positional switch at Monza in the following race.

A 34-point lead on his teammate Lando Norris and more than 100-point advantage on third place Max Verstappen slowly dwindled before a double McLaren disqualification in Las Vegas saw Piastri become the underdog in a three-driver race for the title.

Ultimately, he finished the season third with Norris crowned champion in the final race of the year.

Moreover, there was relentless speculation that Piastri was falling victim to preferential treatment towards Norris behind closed doors at McLaren. Rumours of a rift and the possibility of a new team dominated the headlines for months, only adding to the pressure on the 24-year-old.

Piastri was diplomatic amid the collapse in his form and the wild speculation about internal issues and that he could move to another team.

Now, ahead of his fourth outing as a full-time F1 driver, he’s spoken out to remind people he is not just Mr Nice Guy and he will push for that title.

“Obviously, I’m not here just to be known as just a nice person or someone that goes about things in a way that people think is good, I’m here to try and become an F1 world champion,” Piastri said in a UK media conference.

“But I’m very proud of the way I’ve gone about things and again, there are a lot of lessons from last year and, yes, the ending was a bit painful.

“You can treat that in one of two ways: you can either let it bring you down or give you more confidence and motivation for the future.

“With such a different rule set (for 2026) as well that has been a very good avenue to channel any motivation that I gained over the off-season.”

McLaren team management insisted through 2025 that they would let their drivers race so long as they both adhered to the “papaya rules” it’s a position Piastri expects to remain in place this season.

Whatever external assumptions were made about how McLaren’s garage was working, the Aussie says he got a fair go.

“Yes, I think I got a fair shot last year,” he said.

“I’m expecting that to stay exactly the same. That’s definitely not to say that certain things could have been done better last year. I think that was probably clear for everyone watching.

“But I think for me at no point were there ever any bad intentions or any times I questioned the intentions of things.

“Again, things could have been done better, situations could have been handled differently, but that is part of elite sport and part of Formula 1.”