Andy Park: He’s long been fettered as the one, the one Australian Formula One driver who’ll go beyond all others. But on the weekend, well, that’s already happened. Melbourne-born Oscar Piastri’s win at the Belgium Grand Prix all but seals his record. He’s already arguably the best Formula One driver in Australian history. It comes as his home Grand Prix in Australia eyes some major changes designed to accommodate soaring crowd numbers. Dijana Damjanovic prepared this report.
Archive: Oscar Piastri wins the Belgian Grand Prix. He beats his team to the world record.
Dijana Damjanovic: He’s the man on track to be the best Formula One driver Australia has ever seen. And he’s just clinched another historic victory in the Belgian F1. Oscar Piastri’s McLaren team weren’t holding back when showing their satisfaction with his performance.
Archive: Great afternoon. Really good. Let’s go. Really good job, mate. Really good. Nicely done. Nicely done.
Dijana Damjanovic: The man himself sticking with his signature disciplined tone post-race.
Oscar Piastri: Yeah, I got a good exit of turn one and then, yeah, lifted as little as I did through Eau Rouge and, yeah, then that it was enough. We had it mostly under control. Turns out starting second at Spa’s not too bad after all.
Dijana Damjanovic: After a disappointing first day performance in Belgium, Piastri turned the tables in a first lap masterstroke on day two, passing teammate and first placed Lando Norris, and he hung on. Matt Cooch is an F1 journalist.
Matt Cooch: We had to wait something like 80 minutes for that because of rain delays and all sorts of things. But once the race got going, he tucked himself in behind Lando Norris, his McLaren teammate, got the slipstream and then made the move happen at the first time of asking and from there on controlled the race. Really beautifully resisted pressure as it built through the final third of the race and brought home another fantastic win.
Dijana Damjanovic: This latest win is Piastri’s sixth for the 2025 season, breaking the record for most wins by an Australian driver in a single Formula One season. Jack Brabham won five races when he won the second of his three world championships in 1960. Alan Jones equalled Brabham’s mark in 1980, but now Oscar Piastri has surpassed them both.
Stephen Ottley: And so I think this is really just the inevitable outcome of an incredibly talented young man who’s going to, I think, have a very long and successful career in Formula One.
Dijana Damjanovic: Piastri also now has as many race career wins as Australian racing star Daniel Ricciardo. Stephen Ottley is the editor of Talk Cafe, an online automotive magazine. He says Piastri could be coming to the Australian Grand Prix in March next year as the world champion.
Stephen Ottley: I think that’s only going to drive more interest and it’s only going to drive more spectators and you’re going to need to, you know, the organisers are going to need to accommodate that.
Dijana Damjanovic: As the sport grows in Australia with spectator numbers on the rise, the Victorian government is also looking to make changes to the Melbourne Grand Prix Race Festival. It’s now seeking feedback on extending the race period from seven days to three weeks to give organisers more time to set up race infrastructure. Stephen Ottley says as a spectator himself, the change is needed.
Stephen Ottley: The scale of it in the last few years that I’ve been is enormous. The bridges, all those kind of infrastructure, I think, need to be expanded so we can get more people in and in a more comfortable and safer way.
Dijana Damjanovic: And to the tournament underway, the F1 heads to Hungary this weekend. The same track Oscar Piastri got his first ever victory last season.
Oscar Piastri: Yeah, it’s going to be exciting to go back. It’s a track I enjoy and yes, seeing my first win last year. So I’m looking forward to getting back and hopefully we can continue the momentum because this weekend the pace has been incredibly strong.
Andy Park: Australian Formula One driver Oscar Piastri ending that report by Dijana Damjanovic.