- Oscar Piastri sits seventh in the 2026 F1 standings on 104 points, 55 behind teammate Lando Norris, a reversal from leading Norris by 34 points at the same stage in 2025.
- He and Norris clashed on track at Monza, with Norris complaining “he pushed me off” over the radio before calling the battle fair once he saw the replay.
- McLaren has confirmed a review of its “rules of engagement” between the two drivers after the incident, even as Piastri continues to search for the pace that made him a title contender.
A Points Gap That Flipped in a Year
A year ago, Oscar Piastri left the Dutch Grand Prix 34 points clear of Lando Norris and looking like the favorite to win his first world championship. This year, he left the same race 55 points behind him. The swing, 89 points inside twelve months between the same two teammates in the same car, is the story of Piastri’s 2026 season in one number.
Norris has won the last two grands prix before Monza, both from pole, in a McLaren that received a heavy upgrade package Piastri has not been able to unlock the same way. Piastri finished sixth in Zandvoort after a season that has already included a DNF he could not fully explain. He trails Norris 13 to 4 in their head-to-head qualifying battle this year, sprint sessions included, a gap that speaks to raw pace rather than bad luck alone.
“I Don’t Have Any Answers”
Piastri has not tried to spin the numbers. After the Dutch Grand Prix, he told reporters flatly that he did not have an explanation for the gap. “Our kind of general level of performance has not been quite where we want it to be, obviously,” he said, extending the frustration beyond his own driving to the car underneath him.
He has also pointed to something more personal: a mismatch between his natural driving style and what the 2026 McLaren rewards. Piastri said his preferred way of driving the car is not always the fastest way to extract its performance, and that closing the gap will mean adapting rather than waiting for the car to come back to him. “I need to be able to step up and be a bit more consistent at my highest level,” he said, a rare piece of self-criticism from a driver who spent 2025 being talked about as the calmest rookie-turned-contender the grid had seen in years.
The Pedigree Behind the Slump
What makes 2026 such an odd season for Piastri is what came before it. He is the only driver in modern single-seater racing to win three consecutive junior championships in three different categories: the Formula Renault Eurocup in 2019, FIA Formula 3 in 2020, and FIA Formula 2 in 2021, finishing out of the points in the Renault Eurocup only once across an entire season. That run, mentored by countryman Mark Webber inside the Alpine junior program, marked him as one of the most complete prospects to reach F1 in years.
The path to McLaren was not simple. Alpine announced Piastri as its 2023 race driver without his agreement, a dispute that went to Formula 1’s Contract Recognition Board before Piastri was released and signed with McLaren instead. He arrived with the kind of polish that made a title fight plausible within a few seasons, and by mid-2025 he was delivering on it, leading his own teammate by 34 points at the same point on the calendar where he now trails him by 55. The swing is not a rookie finding his footing. It is a proven title contender searching for a version of himself that, twelve months ago, looked like the best young driver in the sport.
The Monza Flashpoint
The tension between Piastri and Norris moved from the stat sheet to the track itself at the Italian Grand Prix. Norris passed Piastri on lap 48, and Piastri fought back before Norris launched another attack later in the race, the biggest flashpoint of their battle. Norris went for the outside line through Curva Grande, put his left-side wheels onto the grass as Piastri held his position, and immediately came on the radio complaining he had been pushed off the circuit.
McLaren’s response in the moment was to remind Piastri to keep the racing clean rather than issue a team order to settle it, a choice team principal Andrea Stella defended afterward by saying the grass moment looked less serious on review than it had felt to Norris inside the car in real time. Norris reclaimed fourth place on the final lap, with Piastri finishing fifth.
From Radio Complaint to “A Good Battle”
What happened after the checkered flag mattered as much as what happened on track. Norris walked back his in-race frustration once he watched the footage, calling the fight with Piastri “a good battle” that was “fair,” setting aside his complaint from moments earlier. It was, by his own description, a heat-of-the-moment reaction rather than a lasting grievance.
McLaren did not treat the incident as fully resolved. The team confirmed it would review its rules of engagement for the two drivers, an acknowledgment that letting a struggling teammate and a championship leader race each other freely at 340 kilometers per hour carries risk the team wants to manage more carefully before it costs both cars a result, or worse.
Eight Races to Make His Case
The calendar does not give Piastri much room to sit with the Monza result. Baku and Singapore follow before the season heads to the Americas for races in Texas and Mexico City, then on to Sao Paulo, Las Vegas, Qatar and a finale at Abu Dhabi, eight rounds that will decide not just where Norris’s championship defense ends up but where Piastri stands relative to him when the year closes. A driver 55 points back with that many races left is not mathematically finished. He is only finished if the pace deficit that has defined his season continues unchanged.
McLaren’s own review of how it lets its two drivers race each other will factor into that stretch too. If the team tightens its approach after Monza, Piastri could get fewer moments like the Curva Grande battle to claw back position on track, which puts more emphasis on qualifying, the area where his gap to Norris has been widest all year.
What Comes Next for the Trailing Teammate
None of this changes the fundamental shape of Piastri’s season. He is not fighting for the championship Norris now leads. He is fighting to close a gap that started the year in his favor and has swung hard the other way, while also proving to his own team that the Monza fight was competitive instinct and not a driver grasping for something to hold onto.
The next stretch of races will say more about which version of Piastri shows up than any radio message from Monza. A driver who led his teammate by 34 points twelve months ago does not lose that gap when the speed disappears overnight. He loses it race by race, and closes it the same way, if he closes it at all.
For a driver whose junior career suggested he might never face a season like this one, the honesty in his own answers, admitting he does not know why the pace has gone missing, could end up counting for more than any single result between now and Abu Dhabi. Drivers who can name a problem out loud tend to fix it faster than drivers who pretend one does not exist, and the next eight weekends will show whether Piastri’s candor translates into the pace it is meant to diagnose.
Sources:
- https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/piastri-admits-he-doesnt-have-any-answers-over-lack-of-pace-in-disappointing-dutch-grand-prix.2zPXuphojLleZZra27ZQbe
- https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/a-good-battle-norris-and-piastri-reflect-on-mclaren-intra-team-fight-in-italian-grand-prix.4q1LnHj0keADzgZ6KcBhRZ
- https://racingnews365.com/lando-norris-issues-fair-u-turn-after-oscar-piastri-radio-frustration
- https://www.motorsportweek.com/2026/09/07/mclaren-confirm-review-after-norris-piastri-battle-at-italian-gp/
