Oscar Piastri must rediscover his confidence before he recaptures the sizzling 2025 form that got him to within 13 points of the world title, says Formula 1 great Damon Hill.

Piastri led more rounds than any other driver last season and was favourite to clinch the crown until a disastrous final quarter of the season saw him slip behind teammate Lando Norris and Max Verstappen.

His title challenge came earlier than expected, in just his third campaign in the sport, and he was widely tipped to kick on in 2026 with another championship run.

Fox Sports, available on Kayo Sports, is the only place to watch every practice, qualifying session and race in the 2026 FIA Formula One World Championship™ LIVE in 4K | Get Kayo now.

Instead Piastri has been decisively beaten by Norris so far this year, while McLaren’s inconsistent car has left both drivers locked out of the title fight.

Damon Hill, the 1996 world champion, said returning to McLaren at the start of the season would have been difficult for Piastri to digest amid celebrations of Norris’s title victory, the first for a McLaren driver since Lewis Hamilton in 2008.

“(If) the other guy wins it and you’re still in the same team the following year, that’s hard,” he tells Fox Sports in an interview promoting his biographical documentary Hill, showing as part of the British Film Festival.

“It’s hard to actually walk into the factory and cope with the fact that all the attention is going on this guy who is a world champion and you missed out.

“I think with Oscar, you’re seeing him having to re-find confidence.”

PIT TALK PODCAST: Damon Hill, the 1996 Formula 1 world champion, reflects on the significance of his career and on following in the footsteps of his father | Listen to PIT TALK here >

But Hill added that the picture at McLaren appears to be zero-sum game in which one driver or the other was performing well but rarely at the same time.

The same was largely true last season, with few races in which the two drivers were wheel to wheel on track, while Piastri’s strong races this season have been at weekends Norris has generally been a step behind.

Norris’s long stretch with the upper hand, however, could make it more difficult for Piastri to regain the ascendancy.

“I think these dynamics are just fascinating,” Hill says. “It’s very difficult to get two people on the same level.

“It seems to me one goes up and the other goes down in confidence and attention and all the whatever other things you need.

“It is possible to tip the balance back again in another direction, but it comes down to a lot of work and just extending yourself and finding another gear.”

Brock Feeney claims maiden win at GC | 02:51

The psychological dynamic between the drivers has been an undercurrent of their rivalry over the last two years, though Piastri’s level-headed demeanour has ensured his side of that battle has remained in the background most of the time.

Occasionally, though, the Australian has hinted at turbulence beneath the surface. Late last year, for example, he admitted his career-worst weekend in Azerbaijan was in part down to the hangover from the team orders issued at the previous round in Italy, where he was told to hand second place to Norris after the Englishman suffered a slow pit stop.

Norris, on the other hand, has been more of an open book, both publicly criticising and praising himself as he sees fit as well as incidentally casting judgement on his rivals.

Hill said he saw value in Piastri keeping his counsel to balance the dynamic.

“I think Oscar is reluctant to reveal whatever it is he’s having to cope with within the team or within his mind, and I think that’s wise,” he says. “I think it’s probably a good idea to keep your powder dry.

“Every now and then you have to express something, but once it’s out in the world, you don’t have any control over it, so it’s very difficult to pick which bit you reveal, I suppose.

“But it does pay in the long run to just be judged on your performance, not necessarily on what you say.”



–