Oscar Piastri does not do drama, which is why the radio exchange with Lando Norris in the closing laps at Monza got so much attention. The two McLarens fought hard, Norris complained, then called the complaint “in the heat of the moment”, and the team announced a review of how its drivers race each other. For a driver whose defining quality is composure, it was an unusually loud moment in a season that has otherwise been quietly difficult.

Two titles in two years

Piastri was born in Melbourne on 6 April 2001, moved to England at 14 to race, and did something in the junior categories that almost nobody manages. He won the Formula Renault Eurocup in 2019, the FIA Formula 3 title in 2020 and the Formula 2 title in 2021, three championships in three seasons, the last two as a rookie. Then he spent 2022 as Alpine’s reserve driver with no seat, because Alpine had none to give him. What followed was the strangest contract dispute of the decade: Alpine announced him as a 2023 race driver, Piastri publicly said he would not be driving for them, and the sport’s Contract Recognition Board sided with McLaren. He has been a McLaren driver ever since.

Hungary, and the title fight

He scored a podium in his first season and his first win at the 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix, an afternoon remembered for McLaren spending several laps asking Norris to give the lead back after a strategy switch. Piastri was gracious about it. He was also quick enough in 2025 to make McLaren’s championship a genuine two-driver contest, which is both the best thing that happened to Norris and, in the end, the reason Norris is the one with the number 1.

2026: a harder year

The new regulations have suited neither McLaren driver, and Piastri has had the rougher ride. He is seventh on 116 points after 13 rounds, 55 behind Norris, and the summer produced a three-place grid penalty at Monza for impeding Liam Lawson in qualifying, an error in Q3 that cost Norris a lap too, and a season one headline described as a “spiral”. His own analysis of the Italian Grand Prix, a “quite bizarre” late battle with Lewis Hamilton, was characteristically even.

The contract

None of this would matter as much if Norris had not signed to 2030. Piastri’s deal runs out well before that, and the imbalance has turned him into the driver market’s most theoretically available elite talent. Nico Rosberg has already suggested McLaren’s team orders will shift. McLaren insists it has two number ones. Our piece on what the Norris deal means for Piastri concluded that the symmetry McLaren promised ended with a signature, and that Piastri’s job now is to make the equal-status promise too expensive for the team to quietly abandon. He is 25 and has never lacked nerve. The next contract he signs, wherever it is, will be the most important of his career.

Fact file

  • Born: 6 April 2001, Melbourne, Australia
  • F1 debut: 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix, McLaren
  • First win: 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix
  • Junior titles: Formula Renault Eurocup (2019), FIA F3 (2020), FIA F2 (2021)
  • 2026 team: McLaren, number 81
  • 2026 standings after round 13: 7th, 116 points

Frequently asked questions

How old is Piastri?

25 during the 2026 season.

When did he win his first race?

The 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix.

Where is he in the 2026 championship?

Seventh after 13 rounds on 116 points.

When does his McLaren contract end?

McLaren has not published the date, but it expires before Norris’s 2030 deal.