The crown is heavy, and for Oscar Piastri, it’s suddenly slipping. Just four races ago, the young McLaren driver was the undisputed king-in-waiting of the 2025 Formula 1 season. After a commanding victory at Zandvoort, he held a seemingly insurmountable 34-point lead over his teammate, Lando Norris. He was flawless, fast, and cruising toward a historic maiden title.

Today, that cushion is gone. The 34-point fortress has crumbled to a terrifyingly slim 14-point margin.

Piastri’s dominant narrative has been ripped apart by a brutal sequence of events. It’s been a masterclass in how quickly a dream can curdle. There was the contentious team order at Monza that bristled with internal tension. There was the nightmare crash-filled weekend in Azerbaijan. Then came the cardinal sin of motorsport: collisions with his own teammate, not once, but twice—a controversial lap-one hit from Norris in Singapore, followed by a mutual disaster in the Austin sprint. Capping it all off was an anonymous, almost invisible, fifth-place finish at the US Grand Prix.

While Piastri has faltered, his rivals have feasted. Norris, smelling blood in the water, has been relentlessly chipping away. But the true shark in the water is the reigning champion, Max Verstappen. In the same four-race span that Piastri has struggled, Verstappen has devoured a staggering 64 points from his deficit. The shadow of the Red Bull champion now looms larger and more ominous than ever.

For Piastri’s fans, it’s a horror show. The man who could do no wrong is suddenly making mistakes. The pressure is visibly mounting. But here is the shocking truth: this is not new. This is not a unique disaster. In fact, this public, nerve-shredding wobble might just be the unofficial initiation into one of F1’s most exclusive clubs: the champions who nearly threw it all away… and didn’t.

Piastri is far from the first title favorite to stumble at the finish line. His current predicament is a near-perfect echo of the high-stakes dramas that have defined some of the sport’s greatest names.

Look no further than Verstappen himself. The man hunting Piastri knows this exact scenario. In 2021, his legendary battle with Lewis Hamilton reached a boiling point. Verstappen held a comfortable 29-point lead with just four races remaining. It looked over. Then, Hamilton and Mercedes unleashed a “rocket ship,” and the champion-in-waiting began to crack.

Hamilton won three races in a row—Brazil, Qatar, and a chaotic, explosive encounter in Saudi Arabia. Verstappen’s composure famously evaporated. He was accused of a “head loss,” pushing Hamilton off-track in Brazil and, most notoriously, executing a “brake test” in Saudi Arabia that saw the two title rivals collide. The pressure had reached critical mass, and Verstappen’s lead was gone. They went into the final race dead level on points. He got away with it, but only by the skin of his teeth in that infamous Abu Dhabi finale.

Even more recently, in 2024, Verstappen’s dominant Red Bull was suddenly challenged by a resurgent McLaren. When Norris began winning, the “red mist” returned for Max, notably in an Austria clash. His team, once unbeatable, was described as a “paranoid second best.” It was only Verstappen’s generational talent—and a crucial late-season wobble from Norris himself in the wet in Brazil—that saved his championship.

But perhaps the most relevant comparison for Piastri’s current pain is the brutal 2016 civil war at Mercedes. Nico Rosberg, after years of playing second fiddle to Lewis Hamilton, shocked the world by winning the first four races, building a massive 43-point lead. It was his title to lose. And then, he did.

A mid-season wobble of catastrophic proportions saw him clash with Hamilton in Spain, slump to seventh in Monaco, get forced off the road in Canada, and clumsily collide with his teammate again in Austria. Hamilton, meanwhile, went on a tear, winning six of the next eight races. By the summer break, Rosberg’s 43-point lead had vanished, replaced by a 19-point deficit. Everyone wrote him off. He was seen as not having the mental fortitude. Yet, he returned from the break with a stunning second-half-of-the-season charge, aided by a crucial engine failure for Hamilton, and ultimately won the title.

Psychological pressure can make even the greatest look foolish. Just ask Mika Hakkinen. His 1999 “wobble” is the stuff of legend. His chief rival, Michael Schumacher, broke his leg at Silverstone, taking him out of the title fight. With the best car and his only true competitor gone, Hakkinen was expected to cruise to his second crown.

Instead, he began to crumble. He found himself in a frantic, undignified scrap with Schumacher’s unheralded deputy, Eddie Irvine. The pressure was so immense that at the Italian Grand Prix, Hakkinen made a simple, unforced error and spun out of the lead. He was famously caught by TV cameras in the bushes, weeping uncontrollably. He had dropped the ball so often that he only just managed to secure the title in the final race at Suzuka.

Sometimes, the wobble isn’t just psychological; it’s a perfect storm of bad luck and a vanishing performance advantage. Michael Schumacher’s 2000 season, his first title for Ferrari, started like a dream. He won the first three races, finally looking set to end the team’s two-decade drought. Then, disaster. He suffered three straight zero-scores: an engine failure in France and first-corner tangles in both Austria and Germany. His rival, Hakkinen, took the lead. Schumacher was forced to dig deep, winning the final four races to claw back the championship.

And then there’s the ultimate fairy tale that almost wasn’t: Jenson Button and Brawn GP in 2009. The story is famous. Button won six of the first seven races. It was one of the most dominant starts to a season ever. Then, the magic disappeared.

Button didn’t win another race all year. He only scored two more podiums in the remaining ten races. The Brawn car, a masterpiece of engineering, was being out-developed. Button himself was visibly “tightening up,” struggling to even make the top 10 in qualifying. His teammate, Rubens Barrichello, suddenly started winning races. Button’s golden opportunity was evaporating. He was saved only by the fact that his many rivals—Red Bull, McLaren, and Ferrari—were all taking points off each other. He finally sealed the deal with a desperate, brilliant 14th-to-fifth charge in Brazil.

So, as Oscar Piastri heads to Mexico City with his lead in tatters and his rivals sensing weakness, he is not on a new, lonely path. He is, instead, walking the exact same tightrope as Rosberg, Verstappen, Hakkinen, Schumacher, and Button.

His wobble is severe, public, and painful. But history shows that this is the moment that separates the “what-ifs” from the “what-are-you-mades.” The final five races of 2025 are no longer just a test of Piastri’s speed. They are a raw, brutal test of his resilience. The question is no longer if he can win, but if he can follow in the footsteps of these six flawed, great champions and find a way to get it done.