{"id":828776,"date":"2026-07-27T07:51:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T07:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/828776\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T07:51:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T07:51:11","slug":"oscar-piastri-swore-at-his-mclaren-crew-in-frustration-in-hungary-but-any-formula-one-revival-is-up-to-him-australia-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/828776\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri swore at his McLaren crew in frustration in Hungary, but any Formula One revival is up to him | Australia sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blasphemy from Oscar Piastri had to be censored on more than one occasion during his frustrating Hungarian Grand Prix<\/a>. But it was the Australian\u2019s use of the M-word that will fuel speculation about his future at the halfway mark of a disappointing Formula One season.<\/p>\n

\u201cMate, just don\u2019t fucking talk to me now,\u201d Piastri said down his radio to his crew after the moment a possible race victory was lost, when the team\u2019s pit stop strategy left him in traffic and exposed to backmarker incompetence. \u201cNice of you guys to factor that one in by the way, thanks,\u201d Piastri added.<\/p>\n

If the use of \u201cmate\u201d was bad enough, Piastri\u2019s sarcasm revived memories of his pain from last year. Team decisions then appeared to favour Norris, helping the English driver secure the 2025 world title over the Australian whose confidence had been sapped by season\u2019s end.<\/p>\n

Under radically new rules this year McLaren<\/a> have struggled behind Mercedes and Ferrari, but there was optimism after new upgrades for Hungary put Norris on pole and Piastri behind him in third thanks to penalties for Kimi Antonelli and Lewis Hamilton.<\/p>\n

The Australian appeared set to take full advantage and looked likely to win his first GP in almost a year \u2013 and McLaren\u2019s first for 2026 \u2013 when he overtook Norris on the first lap. Piastri\u2019s move was significant on a track widely condemned for its paucity of overtaking opportunities. An hour later, however, he had lost the lead to Norris during their pit stops before a gearbox failure left him marooned on the side of the track.<\/p>\n

McLaren\u2019s Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris in action in Budapest. Photograph: M\u00e1rton M\u00f3nus\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Piastri now languishes in seventh in the driver\u2019s championship. A year ago he appeared almost certain to be the new world champion and carried the reputation as the best young driver in a generation. Now, the emergence of teenage championship leader Antonelli and even 21-year-old Isack Hadjar \u2013 just one place below Piastri \u2013 threaten to relegate the Australian\u2019s status, and leave him as this Formula One<\/a> generation\u2019s nearly man.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m feeling pretty disappointed,\u201d Piastri offered at the end of the race, adding that after the pit stop \u201cpretty much everything that could have gone wrong did\u201d. Yet he was more conciliatory towards his team than his earlier radio outburst. \u201cOn the strategy side, you don\u2019t plan a strategy for getting taken out by a backmarker. So I can\u2019t blame the team at all for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Piastri is contracted in papaya until the end of 2028, but he has been drawn into speculation about a possible swap with Max Verstappen. The Dutch driver\u2019s relationship with Red Bull has been tested during the team\u2019s transition following departures of principal Christian Horner and engineer Adrian Newey.<\/p>\n

Though Verstappen has now overtaken Piastri on the driver ladder, the McLaren better supports the Australian\u2019s ambition to win races. Piastri\u2019s more diplomatic tone after the race shows he knows this is a workplace that \u2013 at least for now \u2013 he does not want to torch.<\/p>\n

A table of the driver standings showing Oscar Piastri in seventh<\/a><\/p>\n

McLaren\u2019s team principal Andrea Stella espoused the harmony in the garage. \u201cWe race as a team and today was a well-executed race from a strategic and sporting principles point of view, which wouldn\u2019t be possible without two drivers who fully support our approach,\u201d he said. \u201cThe competition between Lando and Oscar was great, fair racing, and we\u2019re very pleased with the respectful approach they showed each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Formula One circus now takes its three-week summer break, before travelling to the Netherlands. There last year, Piastri won and Norris was a late retirement. It left the Australian with a 34-point lead in the championship.<\/p>\n

Less than 12 months later, Piastri offers the most compelling personal study on the grid. He looked near invincible in the first half of 2025, fuelled by what appeared to be unflappable focus and quiet determination. Now he is anything but.<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n

Sign up to The Recap<\/p>\n

The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend\u2019s action<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Some of the struggle has been out of his control. All teams have had to adjust to the new power units, which have challenged the convention approach of building and driving race cars. The reliability of the McLaren has also been left wanting, with electronics scuppering hopes in China and Belgium.<\/p>\n

Yet Piastri has been consistently out-qualified by an improving Norris, and has failed to secure a place on the front of the grid all season. The English driver was consistently quicker than Piastri in the upgraded McLaren in Hungary, suggesting there will be no easy way back for the Australian to the status he enjoyed a year ago.<\/p>\n

Lando Norris with his trophy after winning the Hungarian Grand Prix. Photograph: Ahmad AlShehab\/NurPhoto\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Some use last season\u2019s dubious application of McLaren\u2019s so-called \u201cpapaya rules\u201d as justification for Piastri\u2019s stumbles. Hungary, however, showed something more significant. As McLaren\u2019s leading driver in the middle of the race he was given pit priority and clean stops, but the incident with Carlos Sainz<\/a> and Norris\u2019s unrelenting pace highlight how good \u2013 and lucky \u2013 Piastri must be if he is to return to Formula One\u2019s summit.<\/p>\n

Stella told Sky Sports Germany earlier in July that the new cars suit some drivers more than others. \u201cBasically, if you just try to drive too clean, the lap time doesn\u2019t come. You have to attack the car, you have to accept that the car slides, you have to be extremely active. And this is a driving style that comes more normal to Lando than Oscar.\u201d<\/p>\n

At Mercedes, the dominance of Antonelli this season over the more experienced George Russell this year prompted the latter to question whether he needed to change his approach. Norris was asked about Russell\u2019s opinion in Hungary and offered an unsympathetic response. \u201cIf you\u2019re not ready to adapt to a different car, yeah, then you\u2019re not at a good enough level, simply.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Blasphemy from Oscar Piastri had to be censored on more than one occasion during his frustrating Hungarian Grand…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":828777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-828776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=828776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/828777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=828776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=828776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=828776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}