Piastri believes he can become world champion: ‘But then it probably won’t happen’

For a driver who led the 2025 Formula 1 championship for more days than anyone else, Oscar Piastri ended the season with remarkably little bitterness. His teammate Lando Norris took the title.

Max Verstappen edged him to second in the standings. And Piastri, who at one point held a 34-point lead after the Dutch Grand Prix, finished third.

He has not let it break him. When asked whether he believes he can one day become Formula 1 world champion, the answer comes without hesitation.

“I think so, yes,” he said.

But what follows that answer is what makes Piastri different from most drivers in the paddock. He does not dwell on the dream.

He does not let it consume him. “I am maybe a bit different in that I do not spend a lot of time thinking about it. Or at least I try not to think too much about hypothetical scenarios,” he explained.

The car is not optional

Where Piastri’s thinking becomes particularly honest is on the subject of what winning a world championship actually requires. Talent, he knows, is only part of it.

“Of course I want to be Formula 1 world champion, but I try to look at it from a very realistic standpoint,” he said.

“It is a combination of: I have to do my job, but in this sport, if you do not have the car to achieve it, then you can believe you will be world champion as much as you want. If you do not have one of the best cars, then it probably will not happen.”

It is a view shaped by experience. In 2025 Piastri did have one of the best cars, and he was still unable to convert his early dominance into a title.

A retirement in Baku, an unfortunate safety car in Qatar and a team philosophy that prioritised equality over individual championship ambition all played a role in the outcome.

The 2026 season has started differently. McLaren struggled badly in the opening rounds, with Piastri failing to start in Australia after a crash in practice, and both he and Norris missing the Chinese Grand Prix due to separate electrical failures.

The defending constructors’ champions found themselves a distant third in the standings behind Mercedes and Ferrari.

Yet by the Japanese Grand Prix, Piastri was back on the podium. He crossed the line second, fifteen seconds behind the winner but ahead of a field that included Charles Leclerc and Kimi Antonelli. He considers that result one of the more meaningful performances of his career so far.

“Honestly, I would probably put that second place higher on my list of personal achievements than fifty percent of the wins I have had so far,” he said.

The reason is not the result itself but what it represented.

“I know that I gave everything that weekend. I pushed myself to the absolute limit in practice. I came very close to the limit in qualifying. I extracted the maximum from the race and we were fast enough to finish second,” Piastri explained.

He is well aware that second place looks modest on paper.

“In the history books it will say I was beaten by fifteen seconds,” he acknowledged. Formula 1 has a way of reducing weekends to gaps and positions, stripping away the context that makes them meaningful or not.

That reality shapes the mindset Piastri has built around his racing. Every weekend he sets himself one clear objective, and it has nothing to do with where he finishes.

“Making sure that you leave every weekend knowing that you have absolutely done everything you could, regardless of whether you won the race or finished fifteenth. As long as I can leave the weekend with the feeling that I did everything within my power. That is good enough for me,” he said.