{"id":842542,"date":"2026-08-03T22:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T22:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/842542\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T22:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T22:44:10","slug":"oscar-piastri-bad-luck-under-martin-brundle-scrutiny-after-latest-blow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/842542\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri bad luck under Martin Brundle scrutiny after latest blow"},"content":{"rendered":"

If it was not for bad luck, then Oscar Piastri<\/a> would have no luck at all. This has been the case for almost a full year now.<\/p>\n

That is the opinion put forward by Sky F1 commentator Martin Brundle after Piastri\u2019s Hungarian Grand Prix victory hopes unravelled with the double whammy of a collision with Carlos Sainz and a gearbox failure.<\/p>\n

Oscar Piastri bad luck streak earns Brundle sympathy<\/p>\n

Want more PlanetF1.com coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google<\/a> for news you can trust<\/p>\n

Piastri<\/a> went on the attack at the start of the Hungarian Grand Prix and took the lead. It was a position which he maintained, as teammate Lando Norris in second made the request to pit first. That was denied under papaya rules.<\/p>\n

For Piastri, things went south in the laps following his second stop. As he looked to lap Sainz into Turn 2, the Williams driver, who was in combat with Fernando Alonso\u2019s Aston Martin, cut back across the track and collided with Piastri\u2019s McLaren.<\/p>\n

Piastri continued, but his chances of winning the race took a blow. Norris was able to pit and come back out ahead of Piastri.<\/p>\n

To cap off a frustrating day for Piastri, he was later forced to retire with a broken gearbox.<\/p>\n

There is a theory that Piastri\u2019s aura has dulled a little with the collapse of his 2025 title challenge, and an at times tricky first-half of F1 2026.<\/p>\n

Brundle just calls it bad luck which seems stubborn to relent.<\/p>\n

More on Oscar Piastri from PlanetF1.com<\/p>\n

McLaren reveals root cause behind Oscar Piastri F1 2026 struggle<\/a><\/p>\n

Damon Hill gives Oscar Piastri advice after \u2018unacceptable\u2019 Carlos Sainz controversy<\/a><\/p>\n

In his Sky Sports column after the Hungarian Grand Prix, Brundle wrote: \u201cIt was the second round of stops on this high tyre wear circuit that made the difference.<\/p>\n

\u201cPiastri pitted on Lap 33 again to cover [Lewis] Hamilton on fresh tyres, and then Norris had his chance to prove he was indeed faster by running hard and pitting on Lap 39, giving him a decent tyre life offset to his teammate Piastri.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn that same Lap 39, Piastri was coming up to lap Carlos Sainz\u2019s Williams who was having his own battle with fellow countryman Fernando Alonso, and after running wide in the infamous Turn 2 which had given Piastri the lead on the opening lap, and which must have looked for all the world to Piastri that he\u2019d seen him and was letting him through, just as Sainz swung heavily back to the racing line and clashed with the race leader.<\/p>\n

\u201cSainz had been informed by his Williams team but his position on the outside of a 180 degree turn meant he had no mirror sight of Piastri tight on the inside, and so his penalty was mitigated down to five seconds, which was zero comfort to a rightly angry Piastri.<\/p>\n

\u201cPiastri did well not to spin out but he lost crucial time and Norris would emerge from the pits into a lead he would not relinquish. In fact, he would relentlessly increase it despite a third stop under a Virtual Safety Car for fresher soft compound tyres on Lap 56 to recover, so painfully, Piastri\u2019s McLaren which had suffered transmission failure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe young Australian hasn\u2019t been able to catch any kind of lucky break for the best part of a year now.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the plus side, Piastri goes into the summer break knowing that McLaren now has a car capable of winning, after the successful introduction of the Hungary upgrades.<\/p>\n

But, despite Brundle\u2019s support, Piastri believes that there is work to do on his side to capitalise fully on this car\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes it is,\u201d Piastri told PlanetF1.com and other media outlets when presented with the above theory following the Hungarian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly for myself, today wasn\u2019t very straightforward after the first stint. So there\u2019s definitely a lot of work to do for me.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut clearly the pace in the car is there if you can extract it.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I\u2019ll just try and improve on myself, because I felt like even though I led half of the race, not many things went right to be able to do that. If we can find a bit of pace, then hopefully we\u2019ll get there a bit more comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher<\/p>\n

Want to be the first to know exclusive information from the F1 paddock? Join our broadcast channel on WhatsApp<\/a> to get the scoop on the latest developments from our team of accredited journalists.<\/p>\n

You can also subscribe to the PlanetF1 YouTube channel<\/a> for exclusive features, hear from our paddock journalists with stories from the heart of Formula 1 and much more!<\/p>\n

Read next: McLaren rejects Mercedes theory after MCL40 upgrade shock<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If it was not for bad luck, then Oscar Piastri would have no luck at all. This has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":842543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,818,22298,913,44,2333,4702,85],"class_list":["post-842542","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-home-page","tag-martin-brundle","tag-mclaren","tag-news","tag-oscar-piastri","tag-sky-f1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842542","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=842542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/842543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}