Oscar Piastri doesn’t need reminding how quickly the paddock’s imagination can run away with itself. One whisper about Red Bull, one conveniently neat “swap” theory involving Max Verstappen, and suddenly a driver who’s under contract “for the long term” is being written into someone else’s future.
But there’s a more interesting question underneath the gossip: what does Piastri actually gain by moving right now — even if the badge on the door says Red Bull?
On paper, you can see why the idea has oxygen. A straight move would, in theory, hand Piastri a clear number-one status at a front-running team, and it would also put a full stop on the noise that followed last year’s title fight, when he lost the 2025 championship to Lando Norris and the inevitable conspiracies about internal preference bubbled away in the background.
Yet Formula 1 careers aren’t built on “in theory”. They’re built on timing, machinery and the cold reality that the grass is often painted greener from a distance.
Right now, McLaren looks like the place to be if you’re serious about winning. The team’s Miami upgrades only underlined it. Norris and Piastri went 1-2 in the Sprint, then backed it up in the grand prix with both cars on the podium alongside Kimi Antonelli. It wasn’t just points; it was the kind of weekend that makes the rest of the pitlane recalibrate what they think is possible this season.
That context is why Otmar Szafnauer has been urging caution. He’s not questioning Piastri’s talent — if anything, he’s doing the opposite — but he’s challenging the logic of bailing out of a working environment simply because the garage next door is occupied by a teammate who’s just as quick.
“Last season, in the middle of the season, I thought he was going to win it,” Szafnauer said, before admitting he’d been talked into backing Norris and briefly regretted it when Piastri looked like he had momentum. In other words: even inside the sport, smart people couldn’t call which way the McLaren battle would swing.
And that’s the uncomfortable bit for Piastri if he’s weighing up options. Norris isn’t a driver you simply “wait out”. If you’re looking for certainty, you won’t find it in a team where the other side of the garage is stacked with genuine championship pace.
Szafnauer’s point was less about McLaren itself and more about the psychology of the decision. If you convince yourself you can’t beat your teammate often enough to win a title, does a change of scenery fix that? Or does it just move the problem somewhere else — with extra variables, less familiarity, and no guarantee the car will be as competitive?
Rob Smedley took it a step further, framing it as a classic driver trap. Speaking on the High Performance Racing podcast, he suggested McLaren is the outfit best positioned to take the fight to Mercedes, even if Mercedes is currently in front. He described McLaren as a team “entering its pomp” provided it doesn’t trip over its own feet — and that’s not the sort of trajectory you casually step away from.
Then came the line that will resonate with any driver who’s ever flirted with the idea of being “the main man” somewhere else.
“If you’re a driver in that team and you’re struggling against your teammate… what’s the option for you?” Smedley asked, before pointing to the alternative: leaving for a worse team where you might be number one, but with fewer tools to actually win what you’re leaving to chase.
Smedley’s warning to Piastri was blunt. He’s “never seen it work out well”, never seen it make a driver happier. It’s a paddock truth that rarely makes the glossy career narrative: the emotional relief of being undisputed in one garage doesn’t mean much if you’re spending Sundays watching the real fight disappear up the road.
And if the supposed destination is Red Bull, the calculus gets even murkier. Red Bull is Red Bull — a team that knows how to win — but the current read from the competitive order in the information we’ve got is that McLaren has the better car right now. Leaving the quicker package because you’re unhappy with the internal duel is one of those moves that only looks smart if history cooperates.
There’s also the inconvenient matter of what McLaren thinks about all this. The team’s public position hasn’t wavered. Zak Brown has been clear he’s not interested in breaking up what he sees as a key ingredient of McLaren’s success: two elite drivers who can push the car development, take points off rivals, and — crucially — keep the standards inside the team brutally high.
“I couldn’t be happier with our driver line-up,” Brown said in Miami, calling Norris and Piastri “two great guys on and off the track” who “shine as teammates.” The subtext was obvious: McLaren believes the pairing is a feature, not a problem to solve.
That doesn’t mean Piastri won’t have moments where he wonders what life looks like with a clearer internal hierarchy. Any top driver does. But if you strip away the romance of the Red Bull logo and the daydream of instant number-one status, what you’re left with is a very simple career question: is it wiser to bet on yourself in the car that’s already capable of putting both drivers on major podiums, or to roll the dice on change because beating your teammate is hard?
In 2026, that’s the sport in miniature. The fastest way to a title isn’t always the most dramatic move. Sometimes it’s staying put, digging in, and doing the one thing that actually answers all the noise — beating the guy in the identical car.
