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Not much fazes Oscar Piastri.<\/p>\n
The famously unflappable McLaren driver has a cool and calm demeanour. His podium celebrations are understated and his stoic and sometimes sarcastically deadpan responses over F1 radios have generated memes.<\/p>\n
So it\u2019s unsurprising that whispers of a potential Max Verstappen defection to McLaren<\/a> \u2013 which could knock the Australian out of the papaya-coloured English team \u2013 don\u2019t bother him.<\/p>\n \u201cI think from where I sit, I\u2019m very comfortable in the position I\u2019m at,\u201d Piastri said, speaking exclusively to this masthead before the Belgian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n The interview happens at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps where Piastri expertly piloted his McLaren to victory this time last year, near the Belgian tourist town of Spa, known for its mineral springs. In press conferences the 25-year-old has given a one-word response \u2013 \u201cyes\u201d \u2013 when asked if he\u2019d be at McLaren next year, but he was more expansive about his future when talking to this masthead.<\/p>\n \u201cContracts aside, as Zak [Brown] has said\u2026 I\u2019m happy with the team,\u201d Piastri continued. \u201cThe team have told me they\u2019re happy with me, so I trust them and believe in them, and I appreciate their belief in me as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Related Article To be clear, the F1 rumour mill is often wrong. However, occasionally, there are morsels of truth buried within.<\/p>\n Piastri is under contract with McLaren until 2028, pocketing up to $US26 million (about $37 million) a year.<\/a><\/p>\n Verstappen is also under contract, but Red Bull has struggled with performance and the Dutchman is yet to publicly confirm his plans for next year, boosting speculation he may trigger an exit claus in his contract.<\/p>\n Piastri understands there is \u201cobviously noise\u201d about his future and Verstappen\u2019s potential involvement.<\/p>\n \u201cMax is obviously an incredible talent and wants to be in the best place he can be, and you know, it\u2019s kind of understandable if he\u2019s looking for options to do that because he\u2019s not winning races at the moment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I\u2019m very comfortable that I\u2019m not going anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n If you press rewind to July last year, Piastri had champagne in his hair and a gigantic grin on his lips. The Australian driver stood on top of the Belgian Grand Prix podium, celebrating his eighth grand prix win and boasting a healthy 16-point lead over his rival and teammate Lando Norris.<\/p>\n Nearly 365 days later, the picture, as Piastri concedes, looks totally different.<\/p>\n The new F1 regulations in 2026 have ushered in a new generation of era of cars and fundamentally reshaped the grid with powerhouses Mercedes and Ferrari rising while last year\u2019s constructors champions McLaren have slipped in performance.<\/p>\n Piastri, currently sits sixth in the championship standings with 82 points \u2013 the result of a challenging start to the season, poor luck and reduced pace.<\/p>\n The Australian crashed out of his home grand prix in March <\/a> falling victim to an unfortunate combination of cold tyres, torque spike and driver error. Then there were electrical issues in Shanghai, which saw his McLaren unceremoniously towed from the grid before the formation lap.<\/p>\n Related Article There have been glimpses of a potential resurrection, with a podium finish in Miami<\/a> and Japan and a close call in Austria, but as things stand neither McLaren, Norris nor Piastri look like being in championship contention.<\/p>\n While acknowledging there were \u201cdefinitely still some challenges\u201d, Piastri said at this point in the season, he feels like he knows the car well.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the beginning of the year, I felt like the races where you really had to do some abnormal things and drive counterintuitively, actually were some of my strongest,\u201d he notes.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I feel like from that side of things, I got a handle on it quickly. Maybe some of the other characteristics that the car\u2019s got, it\u2019s taken me a little bit longer to get my head around and adapt to.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I feel like we\u2019ve done a pretty good job on that side. We\u2019re just not quick enough, really. \u201d<\/p>\n Hurtling down a F1 track at an unfathomable level of speed is only one part of the modern F1 driver\u2019s to-do list. Other integral parts include non-stop media duties, lucrative advertising deals, brand sponsorships and catering to an insatiable social media fan base.<\/p>\n Piastri\u2019s no stranger to marketing. He recently did a photoshoot with Vanity Fair France, brooding in dark Prada silk shirts and Dior jeans. Earlier in the year, Aussie fans were treated to a series of Google Pixel ads, featuring Piastri\u2019s trademark dry humour.<\/p>\n Piastri says he understands the value marketing brings, noting \u201cthis is not a cheap sport\u201d and says his team try to make things as fun and as engaging as possible.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know, some of the things aren\u2019t the most exciting in the world, but you know that\u2019s the same with any job or any aspect of life,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cNot everything is going to be exactly how you want it to be, and that\u2019s fine. That\u2019s part of the job. And quite bluntly, I get paid a lot of money to do those things.\u201d<\/p>\n With 6.5 million followers on Instagram, and Netflix\u2019s Drive to Survive cameras shadowing his every move in the paddock, does Piastri think the everyday person has a realistic view of him and his interests?<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like there\u2019s not much that people don\u2019t know,\u201d he said after a pause.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a pretty simple person in a lot of ways, and you know I feel like as drivers and athletes, especially in this day and age, there\u2019s not much that that people don\u2019t know about us.<\/p>\n \u201cCameras are everywhere, social media is everywhere, and people are genuinely interested in what\u2019s happening off the track, as well as on the track. In fact quite often my social media posts actually perform better with the off-track stuff than the on-track stuff.<\/p>\n \u201cSo people are interested in that, which is tricky at times because you know I also want to keep part of parts of my life private and to myself in some ways.\u201d<\/p>\n Related Article One thing the average F1 fan might not know about Piastri is the techniques he uses to get into his flow state before a race.<\/p>\n He hasn\u2019t done it in a while, but the 25-year-old said he often used to sing to himself during a race. He\u2019s jokes he never sings aloud, but rather in his own head \u2013 a sort of comforting internal melody.<\/p>\n He doesn\u2019t have a particular genre or artist. It\u2019s mainly a repetition or remix of whatever he\u2019s heard playing around him which instantly gets stuck in his head and replays on a loop. For a while, his teammate Norris neglected headphones and preferred to blast his music aloud in the room next door \u2013 earworms which always found their way back into Piastri\u2019s head.<\/p>\n \u201cLando, I think, has discovered headphones now and doesn\u2019t use a speaker,\u201d he laughs.<\/p>\n \u201cBut sometimes it was some of his songs. There was one country song I remember a few years ago that I was singing on the laps to the grid.<\/p>\n \u201cBut it\u2019s normally just whatever I\u2019ve listened to that day just gets stuck in my head. And when you get into that flow state, sometimes you just have that capacity to do that and everything kind of happens on autopilot.\u201d<\/p>\n At 25, Piastri has achieved more accolades than most professional motorsport drivers do in their lifetime. He moved through the junior ranks rapidly \u2013 winning Formula Renault Eurocup champion in 2019, Formula 3 champion in 2020 and F2 champion in 2021 and has nine grand prix\u2019s wins in his F1 career.<\/p>\n Arguably, the only box left to check off is to be a F1 world champion.<\/p>\n In pursuit of such a seismic goal, has he retained his childhood love of racing?<\/p>\n![\"Oscar](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784255656_458_10a398e7459f080df56eec4f2720aed2d4725acc.jpeg\")
Oscar Piastri has brushed off rumours around his McLaren seat. Getty Images<\/p>\n![\"Oscar](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784255657_760_216d72e4de9c877be3a34cbf7dcf413f5c0882fa.jpeg\")
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Oscar Piastri and teen sensation Kimi Antonelli on the podium in Miami.AP<\/p>\n![\"Top](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775722871_131_4619fa3e56a8e3dd7ed9592142168c8ad2518dacd424a87040dbbcf9993d9732.jpeg\")
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Oscar Piastri with teammate Lando Norris. Getty Images<\/p>\n![\"Oscar](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/a80d0dced8665a5174b4db52d2350624acaeec60.jpeg\")
Oscar Piastri in Belgium, where he opened up on his future in Formula 1.Getty Images<\/p>\n![\"Oscar](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/625ecfd65e98f03d3c6ba044349e081fd45306f9.jpeg\")
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