‘Not quite the ending I wished for’ – Piastri praises McLaren team effort after missing out on drivers’ title

Oscar Piastri appeared cool-headed after missing out on the 2025 Drivers' Championship to his team mate Lando Norris, hailing McLaren for their efforts in turning around his performance over the last two rounds.

The 24-year-old and Norris both achieved seven victories this season, but a downturn in form for Piastri in the latter stage of the year saw him lose his commanding lead in the Standings and drop behind both the Briton and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.

Piastri headed into the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix with mixed emotions, having seen his dominant weekend in Qatar fall away from him due to an unsuccessful team strategy. Nevertheless, he maintained his rediscovered form to qualify third for the finale, behind his fellow title contenders on the front row.

With a 16-point deficit to overcome in order to win the championship, he recognised that a lot had to fall into place for him to have a chance. A strong start saw him pass Norris for P2 on the opening lap, but he couldn’t do much to get the better of Verstappen, especially on a 41-lap stint on hard tyres.

Asked how he was feeling about finishing second in the race, he replied: “Honestly, pretty good. I knew that going into today I needed the stars to align to win the championship.

“Ultimately, I tried my best and put myself in the best position I could to try and win the race and give myself the best opportunity, but it wasn’t to be. I think we can be very proud of the season we’ve had.

“On a personal level, it’s obviously not quite the ending that I wished for but I think when you look at the season as a whole, I’m very proud of the work that I’ve been able to put in and my team have been able to put in to make so much progress from last year. I’m looking forward to plenty more fights in the future.”

McLaren elected to split the strategies between their drivers, starting the eventual champion on medium tyres while Piastri was given a set of the hard compound to begin the race. The choice allowed him to extend his first stint, but meant that by the time he finally pitted, he faced Verstappen’s unassailable lead of 24 seconds.

Due to the three contenders all finishing on the podium, Piastri lost out on his maiden title by 13 points, with Norris ending the season on 423 to beat their Red Bull rival by just two points.

“It is nice to end the last couple of weekends on a relative high, certainly from a performance point of view,” he summarised. “I guess individually it was nice to find some form again because it would have been pretty painful to end it on the note that Austin, Mexico and Brazil kind of went to.

“Ultimately, there were ups and downs through the year. I’ll look back on the ups with a lot of pride and joy, and look on the downs with plenty of lessons learned. There are plenty more years left to go and hopefully plenty more opportunities.”