Oscar Piastri DNF, radio outbursts and strategic woes
Oscar Piastri managed to have one of the best and worst races of his career on Sunday.
The beginning was magnificent; He passed Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and led the Hungarian Grand Pix by passing teammate Lando Norris, who took pole position on the opening lap.
After a rocky start to the 2026 season, it looked like Piastri’s moment had finally arrived; a legitimate chance for a grand prix win or podium.
Piastri managed to keep Norris at bay for almost half the race. Then everything went pear-shaped.
McLaren decided to pit Piastri on lap 34 and opted to keep Norris out to prevent Lewis Hamilton from overtaking the McLarens. Piastri came into the pits but was then caught behind the backmarkers (slower cars about to lap), including Carlos Sainz, who broke his front wheel.
“Get out of the damn way, you idiot! Oh my God,” Piastri said on the radio.
A few minutes later, Norris, who had been on the second set of tires longer, managed to pit and pulled out in front of Piastri.
The Australian driver’s race engineer informed Piastri over team radio that the collision with Sainz had cost him the race lead.
“Oh man, don’t talk to me anymore,” Piastri said with an uncharacteristic show of disappointment.
Piastri criticized McLaren’s strategy, saying it put it in a situation where it would encounter traffic.
“It’s nice of you to take that into account, by the way, thank you,” he said.
On lap 56, Piastri’s McLaren stopped suddenly at the edge of the track due to a suspected gearbox failure. His race ended with 14 laps to go and the Australian driver added another DNF to his CV.
Norris achieved his first victory of the season, with Dutchman Max Verstappen second and world championship leader Kimi Antonelli third.
To say that 2026 will be a challenging year for Piastri would be an understatement.
The Australian crashed out of his home Grand Prix in March, falling victim to an unfortunate combination of cold tires, increased torque and driver error. Then there were electrical problems in Shanghai when his McLaren unceremoniously retired from the grid before the formation lap.
There are signs of a potential resurrection Finished on the podium in Miami and a close call in Japan and Austria followed by contact with Charles Leclerc at the Belgian Grand Prix, eliminating his chances of a podium finish.
The Australian star has also had to deal with growing rumors about the security of his seat amid reports that Verstappen wants to end his tenure at Red Bull.
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said it was good to see Norris and Piastri “fighting for a good position” at the start and hailed it as a “great race”.
“Oscar had a chance to take the lead and see how fast he could be,” he told Sky Sports.
“The way the race was going meant that we had Hamilton on Oscar and then it was a situation with the lagging guys. Lando was very quick after taking the lead and took advantage of the pace and the fact that there was a bit of a delay for Oscar.”
“This is a race. We are a McLaren race. It was a great race.”
Speaking to the media after the race, Piastri appeared calmer and as outspoken as ever.
“I’m pretty disappointed,” he said.
“I think the first lap was good, overall the first part was decent and I struggled to keep up the pace on the difficult ground… but I had the track position and although I was struggling I felt like I could hold on, but from that point on pretty much everything that could go wrong happened.”
“From a strategy standpoint, you don’t plan a strategy to get tackled by a player coming from behind. So I definitely can’t blame the team for that.”
“For this reason [I’ll] Try to improve yourself during the break. You have some time to reset and bounce back.
The F1 season will now take a mid-year break ahead of the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort.
Earlier this weekend, the FIA announced that Malaysia’s Sepang circuit would host a Formula 1 race for the first time since 2017, as the reserve host of the Bahrain Grand Prix.
The race will take place on October 4.
News, results and expert analysis from the sports weekend are delivered every Monday. Sign up for our sports newsletter.
Hannah Kennelly is an award-winning sports journalist and Formula 1 writer for The Age.Connect via email.
