Why you shouldn't overlook Piastri in 2026

Statistics can be used in many different ways, and sometimes the same ones have the power to both make and break an argument.

Following Lando Norris’ championship success, there were two that caught the eye relating to his teammate Oscar Piastri.

After finishing second in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Piastri ended the year third in the drivers’ standings, despite having led for much of the season. In fact, his 15 consecutive grands prix – from Saudi Arabia to Mexico City - at the top of the championship added up to 189 days, both of which now stand as records for the longest spell as leader without winning the title.

Such records could be seen as easier to come by these days due to the elongated 24-race calendar. But at the same time, that means more opportunities for a run to be disrupted, with a driver requiring consistency over so many more races in order to lead for so long.

The statistic only adds to the overriding impression given by Piastri’s end to the season, though, and that is one viewed as a championship lost that was his to win. And whether you hold that view or not, it would be grossly unfair to overlook Piastri’s continuing trajectory.

Both Norris and Piastri have been improving alongside each other in recent seasons, but the three years they have had as teammates are the entirety of Piastri’s F1 career. When he first took the lead in the drivers’ championship last year, he had just 51 race starts to his name – a relatively small number in comparison to many of his rivals. Norris, for example, is fourth on the list of most race starts before winning a world championship with 152.

Entering 2025, the expectation was that McLaren could provide a championship-contending car given how strongly it had finished the previous season. And while Max Verstappen’s immense success kept him as a favorite among the bookmakers, it was Norris who was backed more heavily than Piastri.

That wasn't a slight on the Australian, but the byproduct of experience. Norris had emerged as a contender against Verstappen late in 2024, and Piastri ended up fourth in the standings, just two points ahead of Carlos Sainz after having finished ahead of Norris just twice in the first 10 races.

Piastri’s first two victories came in the second half of that year – the overtake on Charles Leclerc to win in Baku a particularly impressive highlight – and he was closer to Norris in races than he had been in the previous year, but still had a deficit to overcome. And qualifying was extremely one-sided, with Norris outqualifying Piastri 20-4.

Fast-forward 12 months, and if you didn’t know the points standings, you would be in awe of Piastri’s progress.

The qualifying head-to-head was extremely close, with Norris just taking it 13-11 at the final round in Abu Dhabi (and on that occasion by just 0.029s). Races were marginally more in Norris’ favor at 14-10 if you count Las Vegas before both were disqualified, but that was still a major swing towards Piastri from the year before.

As McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has pointed out, Norris worked extremely hard on improving areas of weakness, and it started to pay off as he unlocked more consistent performances later in the 2025 season. But Piastri had been productive himself during the past off-season, and it showed for much of the year.

Piastri's near-miss in the championship shouldn't overshadow the huge leap he made from 2024 to 2025. Sam Bagnall/Getty Images

An interview I did with Piastri for a magazine issue mid-season stands out even more now than it did then.

“I think experience in F1 definitely helps out, and I think that's where it's taken me a while to learn, and probably more so accept, that experience is a big thing,” he said in July.

“In all the junior racing you do, there's a rookie or a second year driver, maybe a third year driver in some cases, but that's it.

“Now my teammate – who's not that far into his F1 career – is in his seventh season of F1, which is kind of uncharted territory, and until you get into the sport and realize how much you learn year on year, that's a difficult thing to understand.

“So I think that definitely helps naturally, but you don't just magically get better by doing more races. You have to take the lessons from those races, and I try my best to not have to learn them the hard way, and learn them through watching others or talking to others.

“But there's only so many lessons you can learn like that. Some you have to learn the hard way. So I think there's definitely some of that, but I feel like in the off-season I took a step forward alongside the team around me. I tried to find performance everywhere.”

Piastri went on to describe how he felt like he had all the tools in his toolbox, but couldn’t always access them all consistently enough. He certainly was able to for much more of 2025, but then hit the difficulties of the latter part of the season, and had to do some more of that learning the hard way.

For all the focus on how Piastri's form fluctuated in the final third of the year, the fact that he bounced back from that to be on the verge of winning in Qatar and right on Norris’ pace in Abu Dhabi shows he continues his trend of learning, and learning quickly.

“Comparing different parts of different people’s careers is always difficult, with different cars and stuff,” he said after the season finale last month. “But I think definitely I can be very proud of the season I’ve had. When I look at this season compared to my first two years in F1, this year has been head and shoulders above the first two.

“Ultimately, whilst the end result is not quite what I wanted, there’s a lot of optimism and a lot of strength that I’ve gained from proving to myself what I can achieve through this season. Those are the kinds of things that are not necessarily tied to results.

“So I can definitely take that forward into the future. It’s only my third attempt at this in F1. Hopefully, I’ve got plenty more to go, but there are definitely lessons from this year that will only make me stronger.”

If there are lessons for the rest of us to take from the past few years, it’s that Piastri’s ability to improve is one of his greatest assets, and is likely to deliver a further step forward in 2026. Given what he produced last year, that would make for a formidable rival to Norris – who may well make his own step, with the confidence of a title behind him – and anyone else with designs on a championship.

That such progress was almost expected a year ago was a sign of Piastri’s impressive trajectory since getting into an F1 seat. There’s no reason to let the unwanted records of not winning the championship overshadow the fact he clearly continued his rapid development, and that he shows no sign of reaching his ceiling yet.