Revealed: Why McLaren have handed Oscar Piastri another new contract

McLaren have re-signed Oscar Piastri on a new contract extension, two full seasons before his current deal was due to expire.

Oscar Piastri has put pen to paper on a new deal which will see him stay with the Woking-based squad for the medium-term future.

Oscar Piastri underlines McLaren’s desire for stability

On the eve of the F1 2025 season, McLaren unexpectedly confirmed that it has secured the services of Piastri on a new “multi-year” extension to his existing deal.

Given that Piastri was already contracted until the end of F1 2026, the unspecific wording of the announcement suggests that the Australian will race in papaya until, at least, the end of the F1 2028 season – four more seasons with the Woking-based squad and a deal that takes Piastri through until he turns 27 years old.

It’s already Piastri’s second contract extension with McLaren, having initially signed a new deal towards the end of his first season – the deal which had him locked up until the end of 2026.

Piastri’s deal says much about the confidence of both sides in each other, and underlines the Australian’s potential as an expected frontrunner in Formula 1 for years to come.

In what has become de rigeur for McLaren in recent years, extending contracts with plenty of time still to run on them suggests that McLaren knows all the pieces required to win championships and carve out a ‘McLaren era’ are in place – and making sure the key players don’t have their heads turned any time soon is what’s important.

Last year’s championship win, McLaren’s first since 1998, was achieved in no small part by Piastri stepping up to the plate alongside his more experienced teammate.

While Lando Norris’ additional experience and greater consistency earned him the support of the team for a title push, Piastri’s debut race victories and numerous podiums prove he isn’t far off Norris’ level while only in his second year in Formula 1.

It’s now a proven winning team and, as Red Bull have found out over the past two years, keeping a winning team together can be difficult. Not only will other teams seek to destabilise by chipping away at the foundations, but success in itself can cause personnel to seek out new professional challenges.

Think of the likes of Red Bull’s sporting director Jonathan Wheatley taking on the role of team boss at Sauber, or McLaren themselves snaffling away chief engineering officer Rob Marshall and chief strategist Will Courtenay.

McLaren now finds itself on the other side of the coin, an organisation seeking stability in its foundations, and Piastri is a key part of that – a fact easily recognised in late 2024 as rumours about a potential switch to Red Bull emerged.

In late 2022, Red Bull boss Christian Horner expressed his “regret” at letting Piastri slip through his fingers, revealing that Red Bull had had the opportunity to take him into their driver programme – an option they didn’t take.

On the latest season on Netflix show Drive to Survive, Horner was also unequivocal in his answer when asked which McLaren driver, Norris or Piastri, he would take: “Oscar”.

Towards the end of last season, Red Bull’s Helmut Marko claimed that Mark Webber, Piastri’s manager, was attempting to open negotiations with the Milton Keynes-based squad to get his driver a seat.

“Let’s put it this way: Mark Webber is intensively seeking conversation,” Marko claimed to?F1-Insider.com.

But the following weekend, in Mexico, Piastri made it clear that the rumour was merely that by saying a potential move was “definitely not” on the cards and he was “certainly not looking to go elsewhere.”

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Looking back at the nature of Piastri’s initial joining of McLaren, a controversial and daring move after Alpine had infamously announced him as a driver for 2023, Webber’s influence and political nous in negotiations has played its part – whether or not any discussions with Red Bull ever got off the ground, it’s irrelevant now.

McLaren came to the table with a new offer, and Piastri has committed his future to a team that is on the right trajectory and has the wherewithal to be consistent winners.

The key pillars of McLaren’s winning team thus aren’t in danger of being knocked any time soon – CEO Zak Brown is under contract until 2030, team boss Andrea Stella is under contract on a “multi-year” deal that he extended just six months ago, aerodynamics chief Pedro Prodromou had his contract extended as McLaren issued an update on his future last month, and, now, the drivers won’t feature in the endless gossip that is F1’s silly season.

McLaren have thus achieved stability for the foreseeable future, and suggests that Piastri doesn’t see a better option arising for himself any time soon – Mercedes is weighing in behind its home-grown talent, Ferrari are locked up with Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, and Red Bull’s driver programme is moving again after a few years in which it had appeared to lose its way.

The interesting question of the next few seasons is just how Norris and Piastri will evolve as a teammate pairing. While the duo are amicable and co-operative at this point, F1 2024 was a season in which McLaren was the challenger to Red Bull’s might. Piastri still showed signs of the inconsistency which is to be expected of a driver in their sophomore year, yet still there were tense moments between himself and Norris – think of the Hungarian and Italian Grands Prix as an example.

Piastri is now the driver with the longer contract and, given the faith McLaren are showing in him, there’s now no reason for Piastri not to keep pushing until the bitter end of a championship challenge – even if that means going up against his teammate.

It’s the next big question that must be asked of McLaren. Team harmony and a collaborative, co-operative spirit is easily achieved while on the rise towards victories but, when at the top and the drivers become each other’s main rivals, that teammate dynamic quickly evolves into more selfish motivations – just ask Toto Wolff!

Red Bull and Mercedes have a clear team leader/support role in their driver line-ups this season, which should make their lives quite easy on that front, while McLaren, like Ferrari, have two equal number one drivers.

For McLaren, their dynamic is of two young and hungry drivers – one of whom has not yet been given the benefit of the team’s full priority in a title push.

If Piastri can iron out the foibles that hampered his efforts last season, can he step forward to challenge Norris’ superiority and make McLaren his own?

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