It began like a fairytale, a script written for Hollywood. Oscar Piastri, the prodigious young talent in the iconic papaya orange of McLaren, wasn’t just creeping up the grid; he was dominating it. For 15 consecutive rounds, the young Australian held the championship lead, a feat that stunned rivals and delighted fans. He had built what looked like an insurmountable cushion: 34 points clear of his own teammate, Lando Norris, and a staggering 104 points ahead of Max Verstappen after the Dutch Grand Prix. This wasn’t luck. It was a declaration.

Then, in the blink of an eye, the dream began to curdle. The wind changed, the unassailable lead began to evaporate, and the straight path to glory twisted into a grueling, psychological climb.

Today, with just four races remaining, the whispers that once followed Piastri with awe have turned into a deafening roar of criticism. The “huge bombshell” dropped on the young driver isn’t a single event, but a toxic cocktail of a sudden, inexplicable performance slump, scathing public condemnation from F1 legends, and the cold, hard reality of his own team’s philosophy.

The first crack in the armor was his performance. The second, and perhaps more damaging, was the brutal public assessment from those who know the sport best.

Legendary champion Jacques Villeneuve, never one to mince words, laid the young driver’s slump bare. He suggested Piastri’s early success bred a fatal flaw: complacency. “When all you have to fight is your teammate, maybe you don’t push to that last limit,” Villeneuve mused. He painted a picture of a driver who, resting on his laurels, was suddenly caught off guard when his teammate, Lando Norris, found his pace. As Lando got faster, Piastri was forced to push beyond his comfort zone. The result? “Suddenly you have to go a couple of tenths faster… You just get slower and slower”.

Villeneuve’s devastating conclusion was that Oscar may have peaked too early, a driver rattled by a teammate’s resurgence, suddenly second-guessing the very style that had taken him to the top.

If Villeneuve’s analysis was a surgical cut, former team boss Guenther Steiner’s was a sledgehammer. Assessing Piastri’s recent Mexican Grand Prix, Steiner was blunt: it simply “wasn’t good enough to be world champion”. He drove the point home, suggesting the young Australian is now visibly “struggling”. In one of the most brutal public critiques of the season, Steiner concluded that Piastri seems to have “lost a little bit your mojo”.

Think about that. “Not good enough.” “Lost his mojo.” These aren’t just opinions; in the high-stakes echo chamber of the F1 paddock, they become a narrative, a fact. For a young driver who came into the season racing with the freedom of low expectations, this public execution of his talent is a psychological weight that can crush even the strongest competitor.

The most heartbreaking part? Piastri seems to agree. His own admissions after the race in Mexico were not those of a dominant leader, but of a man lost in the woods. “We certainly tried a lot of different things,” he admitted, almost helplessly. “I felt like I stared at the back of a lot of cars as well, so it was difficult to get a read on whether what I was changing in my driving was working…”.

That single phrase—”stared at the back of a lot of cars”—is a chilling confession. He is no longer the man setting the pace. He is the man in the pack, confused, chasing, and “not in full flow”. He is no longer driving the car; the pressure is driving him.

This is where McLaren’s “huge bombshell” truly lands. The bad news from Woking isn’t a demotion or a firing. It is, paradoxically, their insistence on fairness. CEO Zak Brown has been public and proud of the team’s philosophy: “We stay focused on ourselves and we don’t pay attention to external noise”. He has insisted, time and again, that McLaren wants both drivers “racing on equal terms, no designated number one”.

While noble in theory, this “equal driver” policy has become a pressure cooker. When Piastri was winning, it was a sign of a healthy, competitive environment. Now that he is faltering and his teammate is flying, it’s a death sentence. There is no safety net. There is no team-ordered buffer to protect his championship lead. He has been left completely exposed.

The team’s internal language only twists the knife. Team Principal Andrea Stella, when asked about the situation, spoke of “constant evolution”. “If you think you can relax, rest, or slow down… you are going to have big surprises in the future”. This was not a message of support. This was a cold, corporate warning. In the cutthroat world of F1, “You need to keep evolving” is code for “You are not evolving, and we see it.”

The “equal seat” doesn’t offer immunity when you are being edged aside by the man sitting five feet away from you in the same machinery.

And make no mistake, Lando Norris is not just edging him; he’s eclipsing him. The championship lead has vanished. Norris now sits one point ahead of Piastri. The momentum has completely and violently shifted. While Piastri fumbled to hold on, Norris seized the opportunity, peaking at the exact right time. His win in Mexico wasn’t just a victory; it was a statement. The kid who once looked unstoppable now looks vulnerable, and his teammate looks like the true world champion.

The numbers don’t lie. With four races to go—two of them unpredictable sprint weekends—Piastri is not just fighting his teammate. He’s fighting himself, he’s fighting the critics, and he’s fighting a resurgent Max Verstappen, who now trails by a manageable 36 points. One weekend of chaos could flip everything.

The drama is no longer just on the track; it’s philosophical. Does McLaren hold its line, maintaining its “equal” policy even as one driver is clearly outperforming the other? Or will subtle shifts begin to appear—a faster pit stop here, a better tire strategy there? History suggests that when a trophy is on the line, loyalties can and do shift, often quietly, cloaked in “driven logic”.

For Oscar Piastri, the path forward is narrow and treacherous. He has two choices. He can fall into the trap of chasing those missing tenths, over-driving his car, and spiraling further into the confused state he admitted to in Mexico. Or, he can somehow find a way to block out the noise—the thunderous critiques from Villeneuve and Steiner, the quiet pressure from his own team—and remember the calm, confident driver who dominated the first half of the season.

This is no longer just a race for the 2025 championship. This is a character test, a trial by fire that will forge the kind of driver Oscar Piastri will become. Will he crack under the spotlight, or will this forge something stronger?

Zak Brown and Andrea Stella are watching. The world is watching. And time is running out. Has McLaren’s quest for fairness inadvertently torpedoed their own driver’s title chances? More importantly, can Oscar Piastri, the boy wonder whose mojo is allegedly gone, find a way to win it all?