As the Formula 1 season gets underway at the FORMULA 1 QATAR AIRWAYS AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX 2026, a lot of attention will once again be on Oscar Piastri, after coming agonisingly close to claiming his first world championship in 2025.
Piastri finished just 13 points behind eventual champion and teammate Lando Norris in one of the most competitive seasons in recent times.
Displaying maturity well beyond his years, Piastri enters 2026 with momentum and arguably his strongest case to date that he can go one step further in the championship race.
Piastri’s rise has been nothing short of remarkable, plain and simple.
Following his two grand prix wins during his rookie season in 2024, Piastri secured seven more grand prix victories in 2025, leading the championship at several stages throughout the season.
Piastri opened up his 2025 account with a win at the Chinese Grand Prix before stringing together wins at Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Miami, Spain and Belgium prior to the mid-season summer break.
Piastri then notched up his final grand prix win of the season at the Dutch Grand Prix before making his late-season championship charge.
That type of consistency will be critical in 2026, something Piastri knows well having put together one of the longest runs of consecutive finishing streaks in Formula 1 with 44-straight race finishes before his DNF at Baku late last year.
The lessons learnt from narrowly missing out in 2025 could prove crucial in 2026.
Reflecting on last year’s title battle, Piastri said he learned “a lot”, claiming those experiences will “only make me stronger”.
In a separate interview he emphasised that while the season had ups and downs, it was a “really good step forward” compared to previous years, adding that when he maximises his potential he believes his performance is good enough to win races.
With regulation changes, such as a near 50-50 split between internal combustion and electrical power as well as shorter and narrower cars, shaking up the competitive order, McLaren will still be firmly entrenched in the fight at the sharp end of the grid.
From this, Piastri may yet have the chance to turn last year’s season podium into a maiden World Championship.
Piastri, speaking with Sky Sports F1 ahead of this year’s Australian Grand Prix, stated it would be interesting to see how the early portion of the season pans out, following the new regulation changes.
“If there’s one thing I do know, it’s just how competent our team is and especially our engineering team,” Piastri said.
“We’ve shown over the last two or three years just how quickly we can get things back on track and how quickly we can turn things around.
“So I think, no matter what rules we get thrown at us, I think we’ll get there.”
It all starts this weekend at the Australian Grand Prix, where Piastri will again hope to become the first homegrown winner of the race at Albert Park.
In Piastri’s three appearances at the Australian Grand Prix, the 24-year-old has finished 8th (2023), 4th (2024) and 9th (2025).
In an interview with Racing News 365, Piastri expressed his excitement at being back home again, despite a somewhat disappointing result in 2025 after going off the track and sliding onto the grass late in the rain-soaked race a year ago.
“Hopefully it goes a bit better than last year. That would be nice,” Piastri said.
“For me, the amount of support I’ve gained over the last 12 months, especially in Australia, it’s going to be very nice to be back racing at home.”
The first practice session for the Australian Grand Prix begins at 12:30pm AEDT on Friday, 6 March.
