{"id":204940,"date":"2025-10-11T07:49:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T07:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/204940\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T07:49:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T07:49:07","slug":"oscar-piastri-may-be-putting-pressure-on-mclaren-bosses-by-planning-transfer-to-rival-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/204940\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri may be putting ‘pressure’ on McLaren bosses by planning ‘transfer’ to rival team"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\/ Follow us on Google Discover <\/a> <\/p>\n

McLaren are desperate to keep their Formula 1 driver line-up of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri together. But recent rumours suggest that Piastri may be exploring the market.<\/p>\n

Piastri<\/a> and Norris have just become the first McLaren teammates to deliver successive constructors\u2019 titles since Gerhard Berger and Ayrton Senna in 1990 and 1991. They have done so in historic fashion, scoring 12 wins and 28 podiums in 18 races.<\/p>\n

McLaren<\/a> have repeatedly insisted that they have two \u2018number one\u2019 drivers. But one can see how Piastri, looking at the dominance of Max Verstappen at Red Bull or George Russell at Mercedes, may want to be an outright team leader.<\/p>\n

CATEGORYVOLUMEMCLAREN RANKRaces6412thWins9=6thPoles59thPodiums249thPoints7254thOscar Piastri\u2019s McLaren career so far<\/p>\n

Piastri signed a new contract with McLaren at the start of the year, one that runs until the end of 2028. Still, it\u2019s significant that there are even whispers about the championship leader considering his options.<\/p>\n

Oscar Piastri links to Ferrari may be designed to put pressure on McLaren<\/p>\n

The first stories have seen Piastri linked to Ferrari<\/a>, who could have a vacancy at the end of 2026 if Lewis Hamilton retires or moves on. Charles Leclerc also has an exit clause<\/a> in his deal.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been claimed that Piastri has \u2018set his sights\u2019 on Maranello for 2027. He\u2019s apparently \u2018dissatisfied\u2019 with his role at McLaren.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

TalkingPoints<\/p>\n

Should Oscar Piastri leave McLaren?<\/p>\n

On Thursday, there were even suggestions that Piastri is \u2018flirting\u2019 with Ferrari<\/a>, which hints that initial, exploratory contact has been made. F1-Insider<\/a> posit a potential explanation for the gossip.<\/p>\n

It may be that he\u2019s simply intending to \u2018put pressure\u2019 on McLaren amid a \u2018fiercely contested championship battle\u2019. It will only become clear \u2018in the coming months\u2019 if he\u2019s seriously planning a \u2018transfer\u2019 to Ferrari.<\/p>\n

Is Oscar Piastri now showing the guile of an F1 champion?<\/p>\n

In terms of car performance, Piastri has little incentive to leave McLaren. Mercedes are believed to have the best engine<\/a> for 2026, and they will continue to supply the Woking outfit until at least the end of 2030. <\/p>\n

McLaren are as good now as they have been at any point in the 21st century. The tandem of Zak Brown and Andrea Stella is one that almost every team would relish. <\/p>\n

Piastri knows this could be his only shot<\/a> at the title because the future is so unpredictable in F1, but equally, McLaren may be the safest bet on the grid. <\/p>\n

If these transfer rumours are pure gamesmanship, then it could be a smart, if underhand, move. The McLaren pit wall may be more inclined to protect Piastri if there\u2019s a perceived risk of alienating him.<\/p>\n

But equally, they want to keep Norris happy too. The reality is that McLaren face a mightily difficult, era-defining balancing act in the next couple of months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Follow us on Google Discover McLaren are desperate to keep their Formula 1 driver line-up of Lando Norris…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,1627,816,913,2333,85],"class_list":["post-204940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula-1-driver-market","tag-formula1","tag-mclaren","tag-oscar-piastri","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}