Fremantle\u2019s haunting finals loss has been compared to a different Australian sporting heartbreak ahead of a set of blockbuster season openers.<\/p>\n
As the AFL prepares to return for another season, so too does Formula One with the first practice session of the 2026 season to get underway on Friday.<\/p>\n
All eyes at Albert Park will be on hometown hero Oscar Piastri, who finished third in the Driver\u2019s Championship last season, having lost out to teammate Lando Norris and Max Verstappen in the final race of the season.<\/p>\n
Paistri led the championship for 15 rounds only to miss the podium in six of the last eight races to finish 13 points behind Norris.<\/p>\n
F1 commentator David Croft joked Piastri had \u2018done a Docker last season.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cOscar is a future champion it could have happened last year,\u201d he said on AFL 360<\/p>\n
\u201cHe did what is known in the trade as a Fremantle Docker last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was looking so so good for much of the season and when it came to the crunch time he just fell a little bit short.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith apologies to Justin Longmuir and the boys on that one, he did a Docker, this year lets hope he goes one better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fremantle fell to an agonising one-point loss to Gold Coast in their knockout final despite having the lead with less than five minutes left.<\/p>\n
However as the Dockers enter the 2026 season as one of the prmeiership fancies Croft also beleives there\u2019s no reason Piastri cannot be a contender again this season even in a new era of regulations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he will win a World Title it could be this year but if not it might be next just like the Dockers be patient.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fremantle\u2019s haunting finals loss has been compared to a different Australian sporting heartbreak ahead of a set of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[638,64,63,817,813,816,10124,588,85],"class_list":["post-516022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-fremantle-dockers","tag-sport","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516022","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=516022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}