Oscar Piastri doesn’t need reminding how quickly the paddock mood can turn. One year you’re the prodigy McLaren tied down because everyone else wanted a piece; the next, a couple of scrappy Sundays and suddenly he’s being discussed like a depreciating asset.
That, at least, is the read from two world champions watching his 2026 campaign splutter through the opening stretch. Nico Rosberg and Jacques Villeneuve have both suggested Piastri’s standing has slipped as he’s drifted out of the weekly conversation — and in Formula 1, silence is rarely kind.
The context matters. After a late-season slump last year cost him a shot at the Drivers’ title and even second in the standings, Piastri came into this season needing an early statement. Instead, it’s been a messy mix: flashes of what he can do, punctured by retirements, penalties and a growing sense that he’s not quite in tune with the current McLaren.
He did at least stop the bleeding after back-to-back DNFs in Australia and China, putting podiums on the board in Japan and Miami. But since then, he hasn’t been a factor in the top-three fight. Worse, he’s started popping up in places drivers don’t want to be seen: in front of the stewards.
Canada brought a 10-second penalty for causing a collision with Alex Albon. Monaco added a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane — controversial, yes, but penalties don’t come with footnotes in the results sheet. In Barcelona he kept it clean, yet still looked a step off where McLaren needs him to be. Lando Norris finished third; Piastri trailed home fifth, 35 seconds behind, never really threatening his team-mate across qualifying or race pace.
Rosberg’s verdict was blunt on Sky Sports, framing it less as a temporary wobble and more as a perception shift that can bite if it lingers.
“Not going too well for him as of late,” Rosberg said. “His market value has taken a bit of a plunge in the last weeks and months.
“A bit unexpected because last year he was really on a par with Lando all the time, and this year Lando has jumped ahead somewhat.
“With these new regulations, new cars, Oscar is not feeling too comfortable yet. So it’s a bit strange and he really needs to work on that now because he’s falling down.”
Villeneuve took it further, pointing to a narrative arc that’s become uncomfortably familiar for drivers who briefly catch fire before the sport figures out where to press.
“We saw the trend last year,” Villeneuve said. “Halfway through the season he was the talk of the paddock… And then he collapsed, and his form went down, and he hasn’t recovered. It’s really odd.
“And nobody’s talking about him anymore… It’s very odd. But like we often say, you’re only as good as your last race.”
There’s a sharper subtext to all of this: 2026 is a reset year, and resets create winners and losers. If Norris has adapted faster, that’s not just an internal McLaren problem — it shapes how rival teams interpret Piastri’s ceiling. Right now, the margin is what’s hurting him. Not that he’s suddenly forgotten how to drive, but that the modern F1 conversation is ruthless: a driver can be “very good” and still be treated as background if the other side of the garage is converting weekends into headlines.
And yet, ironically, Piastri remains at the centre of the paddock’s favourite sport: succession planning.
Even while his form is being questioned, he’s been widely talked about as a candidate to replace Max Verstappen if Red Bull ever finds itself needing to fill that seat. Those rumours have been batted away publicly by both McLaren CEO Zak Brown and Piastri, but the fact they persist tells you plenty about how the grid still rates his raw potential — and how hard it is for F1 to resist connecting dots that may not exist.
When asked last month, Piastri sounded more bemused than tempted.
“It’s news to me,” he said. “There’s obviously not been any discussions or anything, but it’s flattering.
“Not really much more than that.
“Hopefully it proves my stock as a driver, which is a nice thing. But I’m very happy with where I am, and I’ve got a lot of confidence in this team that we are going to be able to win races and hopefully championships in the future.”
That’s the sensible line, and probably the truthful one. But it also lands at an awkward moment: when your stock is being debated on TV, saying you hope rumours “prove” it can sound like you’re trying to will the market into agreeing.
The bigger issue for Piastri isn’t whether Red Bull daydreams about him — it’s that McLaren needs the version of him that can lean on Norris every weekend, not the one collecting minor infractions and drifting out of the fight. The podiums in Japan and Miami show the ceiling is still there. The penalties, the retirements and the Barcelona deficit show the floor has dropped.
There’s still plenty of season left to turn the narrative back around. But this is Formula 1 in 2026: new machinery, new pecking orders, and reputations that are far more fragile than contracts.
