The Australian and the duel with his teammate: “My relationship with Lando hasn’t gotten worse, we know how to separate rivalry on the track and life off it.” On the Papaya Rules: “In McLaren you can’t keep secrets to yourself, it turns against you.” On life as a pilot: “There is also the work that no one sees: 5-hour simulator tests are difficult to explain to those who don’t do them”
“I honestly don’t think the relationship with Norris has changed much. We’re both good at separating what happens on the track from what happens off the track. He’s never gotten bad.” A few months have passed since the end of the 2025 World Championship and Oscar Piastri has moved on, speaking about his relationship with his teammate who won the F1 World Championship last year. The duel was tough and there were moments of tension with the team because, when the goal of a lifetime is up for grabs, it is difficult to find the limit between respecting the team rules and knowing how to impose oneself on a personal level.
transparency
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Oscar spoke about it on the High Performance podcast, offering many insights into his life as a driver and giving some further clarification on how McLaren’s now famous Papaya Rules work, i.e. the freedom to race for victory without declared number 1s. Piastri explained that transparency is the only possible way within the team: “In McLaren there are no secrets, you can’t hide. If you start going down the path of wanting to keep something to yourself, in the end it will turn against you.” This philosophy is based on a deep, yet pragmatic respect: “Having respect for each other and being friends are two very different things. It’s difficult to be sincere friends with someone who, 24 times a year, you have to prove you’re better on the track.”
challenges new rules
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2026 was the year of the great regulatory revolution in F1. Piastri says that, as a driver, the challenge was great: “The challenge of the new regulations is so massive that I didn’t have time to dwell too much on the past season – said the Australian – I had to channel all my energy into attacking this new challenge”. In Miami there will be the first changes and, for Piastri, we are going in the right direction: “There are some changes that are certainly a step in the right direction – he said – the most important thing was the coordination and collaboration between drivers, teams, F1 and FIA. Some rules on the power that is obtained from the ‘boost button’ are complex. With the engines we have there will always be a compromise and I am sure that further adjustments will be necessary in the future”.
dream realized
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Piastri then got more personal, recounting his dream come true of being an F1 driver: “If you had asked me at 14 if I believed I would become an F1 driver, I honestly would have said no. I just wanted to be a driver, whether it was in F1, Supercars or GTs.” The decision to leave Australia as a teenager had a huge impact: “In ten years I only spent a total of seven or eight months with my family away from the circuit. But I was willing to give up certain things to make it happen.” Being a driver, Piastri said, is not as everyone can imagine: “Behind there is the work that no one sees – he said – staying in a simulator for five hours testing different anti-roll bars or aerodynamic load levels is something that those who have never driven a racing car struggle to understand”.
voltage
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And then there is the tension for the result: “All the preparation is aimed at those approximately three minutes of track time in qualifying. If you go into a session saying ‘let’s see what happens’, you won’t go anywhere”. The mental coach’s help is important: “If something sucks, there’s no point in trying to say it isn’t. You’re not fooling anyone, not even yourself. I focus on what’s within my control. If I have a problem and I can solve it, I do it. If I can’t, I focus on something else. Leaving a race weekend knowing I’ve done everything I can is the only thing that matters to me.”
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