\u2018He was so right\u2019: Schumacher\u2019s daughter\u2019s emotional reveal as new details emerge<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cI think this weekend was probably one of my best weekends in F1,\u201d he said after qualifying third and finishing second, having come within a safety car of claiming what would have been an extraordinary win over the dominant Mercedes drivers.<\/p>\n
It was notable that the laid-back breeziness that has defined Piastri\u2019s entire career never appeared to leave him during his challenging first two races.<\/p>\n
Though he was clearly distraught after binning his car at his home race, equilibrium was restored in short order, and by the time he stepped out of the car in Shanghai without having turned a lap, bemusement was the overriding emotion.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a while since I\u2019ve watched two grands prix on TV,\u201d he quipped afterwards.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s notable too that the Piastri of 2026 feels different to the previous models.<\/p>\n
Oscar Piastri\u2019s start to the 2026 season might have damaged a driver less confident in their abilities.Source: AFP<\/p>\n
Though Formula 1 moves too quickly for a driver to ever rest on their laurels, after last year\u2019s breakout season, Piastri carries himself as someone with little left to prove. Of course the championship stands remains on the to-do list, but with three campaigns under his belt, he\u2019s proved he warrants a place at the very front of the Formula 1 field.<\/p>\n
\u201cI certainly feel more comfortable now than I did in my first year of F1,\u201d he says, speaking with Fox Sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s always been something that\u2019s pretty important to me, being just who I am off the track as well and not trying to force something that isn\u2019t me.\u201d <\/p>\n
The gradual opening up of Piastri hasn\u2019t been a matter of time, though. It\u2019s been a matter of progress.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always attached to performances on the track,\u201d he says. \u201cI think often I find it very hard anyway to be kind of jokey or making shots at people and stuff if you can\u2019t back it up on track, and for me just being relaxed and being myself has always been how I am.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think as you become more comfortable, you kind of make jokes about not doing the first two races of the year or stuff like that.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s just always how I\u2019ve been in some ways, but once you\u2019ve got some results and let\u2019s say some street cred to back it up, then you naturally feel a bit more comfortable, showing yourself more and not being maybe the super professional F1 driver all the time and letting your personality show.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s just how I am as a person, and I think everyone\u2019s unique in their own way.\u201d<\/p>\n
‘F*** our luck!’ – Russell CRACKS it | 00:30<\/p>\n
\u2018CHARISMATIC LEADERSHIP\u2019<\/p>\n
It\u2019s part of Piastri\u2019s career trajectory. Now in his fourth season, he\u2019s no longer the underdog battling an experience deficit. Especially with this year\u2019s all-new regulations, everyone\u2019s on effectively the same level playing field.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s too early to be able to draw conclusions about whether his development trajectory has taken him past his teammate, the reigning world champion, given they\u2019ve finished only one grand prix together, but from what little we\u2019ve seen so far, Piastri looks as assured on track as he does off it.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite Oscar not having started the two main races at the start of the 2026 season, based on what we have seen in testing, in practice, in qualifying, based on his overall attitude and mental strength, I think we are seeing the best version of Oscar, the strongest Oscar since he\u2019s been in Formula 1,\u201d McLaren principal Andrea Stella said after the Japanese Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we think of the home race, where you are not in a condition to start for a situation that was completely avoidable, it can really bog you down, but if anything, I think we\u2019ve seen his steadiness, his strength \u2014 and a strength that has been able to be passed on to the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe team gets a lot of inspiration from the charismatic leadership that the drivers can offer. That\u2019s been definitely a boost for the entire team to go through the adversity.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally well done to Oscar for the way he\u2019s been facing this start of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Piastri the leader is finding different ways to operate at the elite level.<\/p>\n
The Australian has been guided by manager Mark Webber since 2019, when the nine-time grand prix winner took him under his wing.<\/p>\n
The Webber connection was about more than just securing a path from Formula Renault Eurocup, where he was competing at the time, to Formula 1; it was a mentor relationship that proved increasingly valuable the further up the ladder Piastri progressed.<\/p>\n
Webber has been there and done that. He understands the pressure of being a Formula 1 driver at a top team and has toiled in the heat of a championship battle.<\/p>\n
The Australian has been guided by manager Mark Webber since 2019, when the nine-time grand prix winner took him under his wing.Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
But as Piastri has accrued his own experiences, he\u2019s had less of a need to lean on those of his mentor.<\/p>\n
Webber remains intensely involved as his manager but is no longer a race-by-race fixture; Pedro Matos, his race engineer during his title-winning Formula 2 season with Prema, is now his eyes and ears on the ground.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Webber] is still very much involved, and I\u2019ve still spoken to him a lot through the start of the year,\u201d Piastri explains.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m getting more experience in my own career, and there\u2019s also an element of I\u2019ve just got more experience, so I can make some of these decisions, ask some of these questions myself.<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially the first couple of years or especially year one of F1, there were a lot of questions that hadn\u2019t even crossed my mind that Mark was asking as if they were obvious to me and the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think now some of those questions come a lot more naturally for me.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just a natural evolution, really.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bearman Japan crash sparks heated debate | 08:19<\/p>\n
A CRUCIAL MONTH<\/p>\n
There\u2019s bad news and good news for Piastri after Japan.<\/p>\n
The bad news is that he has to wait five long weeks to back up his first start and finish of the season. If he\u2019s seeking momentum, he won\u2019t find it here.<\/p>\n
But the good news is that the month off will give McLaren a chance to develop its car for the Miami Grand Prix, which is already being billed as a mini form reset thanks to the masses of upgrades expected for all teams.<\/p>\n
McLaren has been open about its intention to start the season relatively underdeveloped before heavily upgrading its car. It\u2019s a strategy that paid significant dividends in the last two seasons and it could yet work again, particularly given it\u2019s equipped with the class-leading Mercedes power unit.<\/p>\n
Bahrain and Saudia Arabia, then, are two fewer races in which McLaren will lose points to Mercedes before its first major upgrade of the year.<\/p>\n
Piastri will be working on his own upgrades too.<\/p>\n
PIT TALK PODCAST: Andrea Kimi Antonelli beats Oscar Piastri to victory at the Japanese Grand Prix on a big day for the Italian and a steadying one for the Australian and his McLaren team, while Max Verstappen says he\u2019s weighing up his future in Formula 1 over the sport\u2019s controversial 2026 regulations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think everyone will probably take the opportunity as well to have a proper block of training,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis off-season was a difficult one to navigate because of how short it was. Trying to fit in processing last year, spending time with my family, spending time with my friends, spending time in the sun, spending time physically training and then coming back to work \u2014 that was a lot of things to do in about two weeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve also got a bit of an understanding about these cars now; we can probably relax a little bit more than we could in the pre-season, because there were so many things to understand.\u201d<\/p>\n
But he also heads into this long break knowing that his season is back on the rails, and not just because he\u2019s completed his first grand prix of the season.<\/p>\n
After what looked like a dire start to the year for McLaren, the Japanese Grand Prix suggested the team isn\u2019t as far behind Mercedes as first thought.<\/p>\n
With development expected to be conducted at breakneck speed, the 2026 season \u2014 Piastri\u2019s dream of the title this year \u2014 isn\u2019t yet over.<\/p>\n
Asked whether Mercedes could be beaten this year, Piastri was unequivocal from the second-place finisher position.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d he said. \u201cI think the fact that I could keep George behind for so long was really encouraging.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m confident that we can get there, but we\u2019ve still got some work to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
That work is already feverishly underway, but you can be sure Piastri will remain characteristically unfussed as his 2026 campaign begins to take shape. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri\u2019s start to the 2026 season might have damaged a driver less confident in their abilities. Piastri\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":592387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[13273,1724,64,63,689,289219,33204,78135,31300,289221,289223,512,249067,9239,90120,163471,289226,817,289220,28118,813,816,841,86311,14211,84708,941,1737,859,647,289225,289224,101416,677,289227,279656,31307,49513,25598,289222,4933,665,85,660,161884],"class_list":{"0":"post-592386","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-andrea-stella","9":"tag-asia","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-australia-and-new-zealand","13":"tag-break-knowing","14":"tag-breakout-season","15":"tag-career-trajectory","16":"tag-championship-battle","17":"tag-championship-stands","18":"tag-charismatic-leadership","19":"tag-china","20":"tag-development-trajectory","21":"tag-eastern-asia","22":"tag-engine-problem","23":"tag-experience-deficit","24":"tag-extraordinary-win","25":"tag-f1","26":"tag-fide-title-contender","27":"tag-formation-lap","28":"tag-formula-1","29":"tag-formula1","30":"tag-grand-prix","31":"tag-grand-prix-winner","32":"tag-grands-prix","33":"tag-home-race","34":"tag-japan","35":"tag-lando-norris","36":"tag-mark-webber","37":"tag-melbourne","38":"tag-mentor-relationship","39":"tag-natural-evolution","40":"tag-nine-time-grand-prix","41":"tag-oceania","42":"tag-pedro-matos","43":"tag-personality-show","44":"tag-race-engineer","45":"tag-reigning-world-champion","46":"tag-safety-car","47":"tag-second-place-finisher-position","48":"tag-shanghai","49":"tag-spending-time","50":"tag-sports","51":"tag-victoria","52":"tag-world-championship-history"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592386","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=592386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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