{"id":624659,"date":"2026-04-23T00:51:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T00:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/624659\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T00:51:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T00:51:13","slug":"oscar-piastri-weighs-in-on-f1-rival-max-verstappens-situation-not-a-great-look","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/624659\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri weighs in on F1 rival Max Verstappen\u2019s situation: \u2018Not a great look\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oscar Piastri believes it will be a \u201cbig loss\u201d and \u201cnot a great look\u201d for Formula One<\/a> if four-times champion Max Verstappen walks away disillusioned from the sport.<\/p>\n

Both the Australian ace and his McLaren world champion teammate Lando Norris talked on Wednesday of their admiration and respect for the Red Bull pilot that Piastri called the benchmark for all drivers in F1.<\/p>\n

But the 28-year-old Dutchman Verstappen has been the most outspoken critic of F1\u2019s total revamp in 2026, adamant that he\u2019s lost his enjoyment in a sport he\u2019s now comparing to Mario Kart and hinting at the last race in Japan that he could walk away.<\/p>\n

Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today Arrow<\/a><\/p>\n

Asked about that possibility by journalists at McLaren\u2019s English headquarters in Woking, Piastri said: \u201cI think it would be a shame for the sport to lose Max, especially at this point in his career as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be a big loss for the sport as a whole.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs drivers, we want to race against and try and prove ourselves against the best. Max has shown his calibre in the last 10 years. Especially the last five or six, he\u2019s been the benchmark.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I think for everyone, it would be a pretty big shame, and obviously not a great look.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"OscarOscar Piastri says it would be bad look for F1 if its benchmark driver Max Verstappen walked away. Credit: AAP<\/p>\n

Norris added: \u201cMax has earned the right to go and do whatever he wants. He\u2019s won four World Championships, he\u2019s always been the guy.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it will be a shame for the sport, it will be a miss for the sport if that does happen, because he probably is one of the best drivers you\u2019ll see in Formula One ever.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I think it\u2019ll be a shame for us, because as much as he makes our lives incredibly tough at times, he\u2019s always good fun to race against.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut hopefully things get better. And he said he wants to win a fifth world championship at the minute, so I\u2019m sure he\u2019ll stay longer than people say.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the break in the program, due to cancelled grand prix in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia because of the Middle East conflict, changes have been introduced to appease drivers and improve racing for the next round in Miami on May 3, where Mercedes\u2019 teen ace Kimi Antonelli and George Russell will start as pacesetters.<\/p>\n

They include allowing drivers to go flat-out for longer in qualifying, and a boost-button cap to mitigate the impact of dangerous closing speeds.<\/p>\n

Asked what he thought, Piastri smiled: \u201cI need to go through all the details of the rules and someone smarter than me to explain what has changed!<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it is a step in the right direction for sure. How far it goes in addressing the problems, we will have to wait and see until we get on track.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

EPL coach sacked amid worst goalscoring drought in over a century<\/p>\n

2 min read<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Netball Australia CEO steps down after major deal locked away<\/p>\n

1 min read<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri believes it will be a \u201cbig loss\u201d and \u201cnot a great look\u201d for Formula One if…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,1625,824,3863,588,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-624659","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-lifestyle","14":"tag-motorsport","15":"tag-sponsored-content","16":"tag-sport","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624659","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=624659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}