![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/poster-fallback.png\"\/)
<\/p>\nDemand for Oscar Piastri in the driver market contradicts claims that the Australian\u2019s reputation has collapsed this season, according to six-time Bathurst winner Garth Tander.<\/p>\n
Piastri qualified seventh and finished fifth in Barcelona, but the result required him to capitalise on a poor start for Isack Hadjar and technical failures for both Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Charles Leclerc, who had been on track to finish ahead of him in a mystifyingly lacklustre performance.<\/p>\n
The result, which saw him finish two places and 34.942 seconds behind podium-getting teammate Lando Norris, left him sixth in the title standings, 88 points off the lead.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Fox Sports, available on Kayo Sports, is the only place to watch every practice, qualifying session and race in the 2026 FIA Formula One World Championship\u2122 LIVE in 4K. New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\n The anonymous performance triggered some damning criticism from Sky Sports UK pundits Nico Rosberg and Jacques Villeneuve.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not going too well for him as of late,\u201d 2016 world champion Rosberg said. \u201cHis market value has taken a bit of a plunge in the last weeks and months.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a bit strange, and he really needs to work on that now, because he\u2019s falling down.\u201d<\/p>\n Villeneuve, the 1997 champion said Piastri had \u201ccollapsed\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe saw the trend last year,\u201d he said. \u201cHalfway through the season he was the talk of the paddock \u2026 and then he collapsed, and his form went down, and he hasn\u2019t recovered. It\u2019s really odd.<\/p>\n \u201cNobody\u2019s talking about him anymore, and that\u2019s in the space of, what, six months, even less. It\u2019s very odd.\u201d<\/p>\n The claims drew a sharp rebuke for 2007 Supercars champion Garth Tander.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought their take as very odd, the way that they have rated Oscar\u2019s season so far,\u201d he told <\/a>MotorRacing 360<\/a>. \u201cHe\u2019s only five points behind Lando. Oscar didn\u2019t have a great weekend at Barcelona, but that\u2019s one weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n Championship warning? Lewis’ big win | 03:33<\/p>\n Tander suggested reports that Red Bull Racing had Piastri at the top of its list of targets to cover Max Verstappen\u2019s potential exit put the lie to claims that his reputation had tanked.<\/p>\n \u201cSay, for example, hypothetically, Max Verstappen leaves Red Bull and he goes to McLaren and he takes Oscar Piastri\u2019s seat because his stocks are so low \u2014 according to those two,\u201d he said. \u201cWho do you reckon is the first person Red Bull are going to call?<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re only going to call one person to fill Max Verstappen\u2019s seat. Who do you reckon that might be? Oscar Piastri.<\/p>\n \u201cIf a seat became available at Mercedes that Max Verstappen isn\u2019t filling, who do you reckon they\u2019re calling? Oscar Piastri.<\/p>\n \u201cHis name will be at the top of every team\u2019s list if there was availability to get him. I don\u2019t get that take at all.\u201d<\/p>\n James Courtney, the 2010 Supercars champion, said McLaren\u2019s step down the competitive order this year was a more compelling explanation for Piastri\u2019s lack of headline-grabbing results.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s a pretty harsh summary of his season,\u201d he said. \u201cI think McLaren as a team hasn\u2019t shined, so then it\u2019s hard for him to look good.<\/p>\n \u201cI think last year they had such a dominant car and great performances over the last 18 months up until this point. I think this year, just as a team, they\u2019ve struggled. I think Zak Brown would admit to that and say it wasn\u2019t good enough, and the whole team [would], and that\u2019s why they\u2019re working so hard to try and lift as a team.<\/p>\n \u201cFor [Rosberg and Villeneuve] to come out with that, I think it\u2019s incredibly harsh. Maybe they\u2019ve just been out of it a little too long.<\/p>\n \u201cI think there are a lot of things going against [McLaren] at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n Drought Broken! Lewis’ 1st Ferrari win | 02:51<\/p>\n Tander suggested Formula 1\u2019s equalisation measures, which allocate less wind tunnel and computer development time to teams at the top of the championship table, have played a role in hamstringing McLaren\u2019s title defence.<\/p>\n McLaren cruised to last year\u2019s constructors crown ahead of Mercedes, Red Bull Racing \u2014 which committed more resource to 2025 to pursue Verstappen\u2019s surprise drivers title bid \u2014 and Ferrari.<\/p>\n \u201cThe result of their success as a team, McLaren and Red Bull, is they have got less development time, less time in the wind tunnel, less CFD availability under the regulations compared to all the other teams,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s no surprise that the two teams battling it out for last year\u2019s [drivers] championship are probably struggling more than we would expect, and Mercedes and Ferrari, which finished [second] and fourth in last year\u2019s constructors championship are having a strong start to this year.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are absolutely paying the price. It\u2019s a bit like the draft in the NRL or AFL. That\u2019s why they\u2019ve set up the wind tunnel time and CFD [restrictions] \u2014 it\u2019s so that if you have a great year, you\u2019ll have less tools to make your car fast for next year. It gives everyone else a bit of a leg up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Demand for Oscar Piastri in the driver market contradicts claims that the Australian\u2019s reputation has collapsed this season,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":743970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-743969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743969","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=743969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/743970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=743969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=743969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=743969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}