Oscar Piastri has responded to claims made by Nationals senator Matt Canavan in the Australian parliament last year that McLaren could have sabotaged the 24-year-old driver's 2025 campaign.
The Australian driver was in the fight for the drivers' championship in 2025 against his McLaren team-mate Lando Norris and four-time champion Max Verstappen. After winning five of the first nine races of the season, Piastri looked to be a strong contender for the title, but a late surge from Verstappen and a more consistent performance from Norris after the summer break left Piastri in third overall.
McLaren's approach of having two number-one drivers was highly scrutinised during the season. The Woking outfit opted to allow both drivers to battle it out on track with the provision that they do not crash into one another. While this allowed for some exciting racing for fans, some argued that they should have chosen one driver to back for the drivers' title over the other.
“Yeah, I saw, and I think, for me, the takeaway from that was just how closely everyone was supporting it more than anything else,” Piastri told 7NEWS.
“There were certainly no bad intentions last year, and I think as a team we know that there's things that we could have done a better job of, things we could have done differently, and I know that as well. But, you know, at no point were there any bad intentions or certainly no sabotage like I’ve seen around a few times.
"That's part of racing, some things go as you want, some things don't. We've worked very hard on trying to tidy up some of the things we didn't get right last year. I'm confident that we can do a better job in 2026 on the whole."
The 2026 season will kick off with Piastri's home race, the Australian Grand Prix from 6-8 March.
