Be Selfish, Oscar: Hill’s Brutal Title Blueprint.
“Next year, if I were him, I’d be coming back saying, ‘Listen, I love the team, and it’s been great, but I have to think of myself. It’s my career…”
Jan 10, 2026
Alex Albuquerque
FastestLap.com

Damon Hill to Piastri: stop being the nice guy if you want that title. Oscar Piastri doesn’t need many lessons in racecraft. Speaking on the Drive to Wynn podcast, the 1996 world champion laid out a simple message for the McLaren driver heading into 2026: be selfish. “I think he probably felt the worst he was going to feel after Qatar,” Hill said, reflecting on McLaren’s strategic misstep under the lights that handed the upper hand to Verstappen at Losail. “He had some misfortune… and he’s lost out because of some decisions with McLaren, trying to be fair.”

The example that still stings? Monza. Piastri, then leading the standings after a commanding win in Zandvoort, was set for second behind Verstappen when a slow stop for Lando Norris shuffled the order. McLaren asked Piastri to hand the place back, citing team error. He did it. Verstappen chuckled about it on the radio. And the air went out of Piastri’s title run. From there the tide turned. A crash in Baku and a flat patch that followed left the Australian scrambling to rediscover the form that had carried him to a 34-point advantage over Norris with nine rounds left. He found it again late — strong drives in Qatar and Abu Dhabi — but not in time. Third in the championship wasn’t the script he’d been writing through the European summer. For Hill, those weekends should sharpen Piastri’s edges, not dull them.

“Wow,that’s quite a big thing to do, isn’t it, to give points away to a guy you could be fighting for the world championship?” Hill said of Monza. “He will probably look at that and go, ‘Well, maybe I won’t do that again.’” Hill’s advice for 2026 is blunt: put your own campaign first. “Next year, if I were him, I’d be coming back saying, ‘Listen, I love the team, and it’s been great, but I have to think of myself. It’s my career… If the situation arises and you ask me to return points to my teammate… I can’t afford to do that. I did it last year. That could have cost me the World Championship.’”

‘Stop being the nice guy’;

https://fastestlap.com/news/be-selfi...tle-blueprint/


Piastri put on the spot by Australian TV with Lando Norris question
28 Dec 2025
Kada Sarkozi
GPblog.com

During the off-season, Piastri travelled home to Australia for the holidays. In an interview with Channel 7, Piastri was asked by the reporter: "Now, it’s just you and me. Is Lando a mate of yours? Good bloke?" Piastri answered with a smile: "No, he’s good, he’s good. We get on well. We work together well. But yeah, I think we’re going to be battling each other hopefully for championships for many years to come," he concluded.

Australian media’s past jabs at McLaren. Local media showed continuous support for their home hero Piastri throughout the season. In reports, they also took jabs at McLaren beginning with the Italian Grand Prix. In one segment, for example, the presenter concluded: "Let’s hope Oscar can do it next year… if McLaren don’t work against him."

‘Australian media’s past jabs at McLaren’;

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/piast...orris-question


Oscar Piastri “Hungry and Ready” After Title Miss Sets Sights on 2026
Dec 29, 2025
James Rees
F1 Chronicle

McLaren attributed much of Oscar Piastri’s downturn to struggles on low-grip circuits, while higher-grip tracks consistently played to his strengths. Despite the setback, Piastri believes the experience gained from fighting Norris and Max Verstappen has strengthened him heading into 2026.

“Just hungry and ready for it. I’m obviously looking forward to a couple of weeks just to chill out and not think about racing. But when we get back into it, there’s, there’s a lot of things to learn for next year, a lot of differences with the cars and the engines. So, you never quite know how you’re going to come out of the gate when there’s such a big change, but I think we’re confident in the people around us.”

“And yeah, for myself, I’ve really gained a lot of confidence from some of the things from this season that I can take forward to next year, regardless of whatever car we’ve got.” Piastri now turns his focus to applying those lessons as McLaren prepares for a new technical era and another title push.

“Hungry and Ready”;

https://f1chronicle.com/oscar-piastr.../?nowprocket=1


Did McLaren unconsciously favour Lando Norris over Oscar Piastri?
There was little to separate Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri throughout the 2025 F1 campaign.
8 Jan 2026
RacingNews365 Staff

McLaren asserted throughout the entire year that it was treating both drivers equally and providing identical chances to their pairing.

But former Alpine executive director Marcin Budkowski has suggested that McLaren may have unconscious bias within the team, which may have played against Piastri.

Certain decisions, including a controversial team order swap at the Italian Grand Prix, drew a lot of discussion from fans and pundits alike

‘McLaren may have unconscious bias within the team’;

https://racingnews365.com/did-mclare...-oscar-piastri


Ferrari 'plotting shock McLaren swoop' as Lewis Hamilton succession plan emerges
Fred Vasseur is reportedly monitoring the McLaren driver situation as Ferrari consider their 2027 options with Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc's futures uncertain
9 Jan 2026
Harry Smith
The Mirror

Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur is reportedly monitoring the driver dynamics at McLaren to assess whether Lando Norris or Oscar Piastri might become available for the 2027 season. Zak Brown's gifted pair are being considered as potential replacements for Lewis Hamilton or Charles Leclerc. Both Hamilton and Leclerc's long-term prospects are under scrutiny as the sport prepares for the inaugural season under fresh technical regulations in 2026, albeit for different reasons. The British driver has sparked retirement speculation amongst experts, though it's understood he possesses contractual options that could extend his Maranello stay through 2027.

Leclerc, meanwhile, is approaching his peak years and remains secured by a lengthy deal. Nevertheless, the Monaco native has been rumoured to be considering a move to Mercedes, and worryingly branded the 2026 campaign as "now or never" for his Ferrari team. According to Autosport Web Japan, Vasseur is closely watching developments at McLaren. Whilst both Norris and Piastri are bound by extended contracts, the Australian's circumstances could shift in 2026 following his failure to clinch the 2025 Drivers' Championship ahead of his teammate.

‘Fred Vasseur is reportedly monitoring the McLaren driver situation’;

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/formu...ilton-36526532


Piastri reveals what he’ll ‘take forever’ from 2025 F1 season
02/01/2026
Michael Delaney
F1i.com

Oscar Piastri doesn’t talk like a driver licking his wounds. He talks like one who has been sharpened by them. “The amount of confidence that I found throughout the year, in myself and my own abilities, is something I can take forever.”

That self-belief was forged through pressure – through leading a championship, through expectation, and through the inevitable corrections that followed. Piastri is clear-eyed about where it went wrong, and just as clear about why it mattered.

“Definitely some things to work on, and [there were] a few moments that I probably wish I had again, and I'm sure the team think the same. But it's all going to make me stronger for the future, and we've got plenty more years of success to come, hopefully.”

‘Sharpened’;

https://f1i.com/news/557024-piastri-...f1-season.html


Piastri: 2026 F1 Will Be Chess at 200mph
Dec 27, 2025
Alex Albuquerque
FastestLap.com

Oscar Piastri spent part of the winter back in Melbourne, swapping pit walls for picket fences at the cricket, but his mind is already on 2026. And the McLaren driver thinks the next rules shake-up will hand drivers a bigger role in how races are won. Speaking to Fox Sports while home in Australia, Piastri said the incoming power unit era will ask different questions of the driver.

The cars will still look like Formula 1, he said, but the balance under the skin will shift. “It’ll still be an F1 car,” he noted, “but the engines are going to be very different — a lot more electrical power compared to the combustion engine. There’ll be a lot for us to get used to, things we’ve never had to do before in terms of managing that battery power.” That’s the heart of his point: energy management goes from a background task to something that can swing a fight. “There’ll be lots of places where you can make a difference as a driver, which should be exciting for the fans.”

Piastri has made a habit of thriving when the brief gets more complex. His racecraft’s neat, his decision-making’s tidy, and McLaren’s playbook has become progressively sharper. But he’s not sugarcoating what a full regulation reset does to pecking orders. “With a new ruleset, you never really know who nails it and who doesn’t,” he said. “Hopefully we’re one of the ones who nail it.”

‘Chess at 200mph’;

https://fastestlap.com/news/piastri-...ess-at-200mph/