On two consecutive Sundays, the P5 white box on the starting grid has been left eerily vacant and abandoned. The first was bad enough, with thousands of fans adorned in green t-shirts perched in the grandstand, named after the hometown hero, left crestfallen. But the second was more excruciating, wheeled away from the starting blocks with just five minutes to go, joining a stricken companion in the garage.
To say the least, Oscar Piastri has endured the roughest of opening salvos to the 2026 season. After his devastating pre-race crash in Melbourne, his hometown, an electrical issue with his McLaren car removed him from the start line and out of the race in Shanghai. His teammate, Lando Norris, had an unrelated power unit problem of his own, with neither car participating in the Chinese Grand Prix.
It was McLaren’s first double DNS (Did Not Start) in more than two decades.
Despite his disastrous start to the year, Piastri was typically magnanimous in his reaction. “While this is never what we want to happen, this is just sometimes how it goes in racing,” he said in the media pen. Norris, more downbeat, added: “It’s disappointing to come such a long way and put in so much effort, not just me but the whole team, and not start the race.”
Piastri is not point-less, courtesy of a sixth-place finish in the sprint race on Saturday. Yet three points to his name already leaves him 48 behind F1 championship leader George Russell. Six months on from being in prime position to land his first world title, Piastri has missed out on that career-defining accolade and is now 12th in the standings at the start of the next campaign, at 50/1 odds to win the championship. Life comes at you fast in Formula One.
To a point, his calamitous opening has been bad luck. Sure, perhaps he was on the gas a smidge too aggressively when spinning his car into the wall on the reconnaissance lap to the grid at Albert Park, but his car experienced 100 kilowatts more power than expected. That, combined with cold tyres and riding the kerb, triggered the accident. In Shanghai, McLaren have not disclosed the specific issue with either car, but clearly it was out of the driver's hands. From dominating the sport last season, the papaya-clad outfit are completely on the back foot at the beginning of F1’s new era.
What has been sharper is team principal Andrea Stella’s criticism of engine partner Mercedes. Having raised concerns about communication channels in Melbourne, the finger-pointing was more obvious this time around. In McLaren’s post-race press release, they referred to Mercedes’ HPP (High Performance Powertrains) programme eight times.
“They look to be separate electrical faults on the power unit occurring at the same time,” Stella detailed. “We’ll investigate together alongside our partners at HPP to understand what happened. We move forward as one team, both trackside and in Woking, with our partners at HPP.”
Of course, the irony is that McLaren’s engine partners are back to their previous standing on top of the sport with their works team, and are clearly the standout outfit on the grid. Kimi Antonelli’s emotional first F1 victory, becoming the second-youngest grand prix winner of all time (a day after becoming the youngest-ever pole-sitter), illustrated Mercedes’s superiority to the rest of the field. When Russell encountered a mechanical issue in qualifying, 19-year-old Antonelli was ready to step into the role of chief protagonist.
And while Ferrari are keeping them honest – particularly off the start line and with Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc battling supremely for frontrunning positions – Mercedes’s power advantage on the straights is too much for the rest of the field right now. Thus, at the vast majority of circuits, the three-pointed star will have an unassailable advantage.
Yet the connection between Piastri’s sudden downfall and Antonelli’s moment in the spotlight is indicative of the sport’s rapidly changing tides. It is why Russell himself stated last week the need to “make hay while the sun shines”. When opportunity opens up, a grasp with both hands could define a life’s work.
Now, that sounds excessive, but much was made last year (particularly when Max Verstappen launched his end-of-season comeback) that one of Norris and Piastri had to capitalise on McLaren’s phase of dominance. Norris got it done; Piastri flailed at the end. Much like his manager Mark Webber, up against Sebastian Vettel at Red Bull, the Australian lost out at the end. Webber ended up title-less.
So, back to Antonelli. In a joyous conversation on Sky Sports after the Italian’s win, his dad Marco and Mercedes boss Toto Wolff both played down the teen’s chances of winning this year’s world championship. “Kimi is young, but not perfect,” a very proud but honest Marco said. “Experience is very important, but George is a super driver and it’s difficult to beat him.”
Wolff was firmer: “You have to keep your feet on the ground now. Kimi had a great race… but he will make mistakes and have great days. We shouldn’t be carried away with world championships.”
But there is no saying how long Mercedes’s current sport-leading excellence lasts. This year, more than ever, is expected to be a rapid development race and the Silver Arrows will be stymied by the engine technical directive coming into force in June. Though only 19, Antonelli has proven he has the pure pace to challenge Russell. And sure, he is the underdog in a title battle which looks likely to be intra-team at this stage.
Yet casting an eye on a hopeful future, downplaying the opportunity at his doorstep, is heedless. Antonelli only needs to look down the paddock at Piastri, with a career trajectory not dissimilar to his, to understand why taking the fight to Russell is paramount. Not down the line, but now.
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