Oscar Piastri provides update on Zak Brown relationship after bias claims

Oscar Piastri insists his relationship with McLaren chief Zak Brown is “stronger” than ever ahead of the 2026 Formula 1 season.

The Australian finished third in the championship last season behind McLaren teammate Lando Norris and Max Verstappen as he missed out on a maiden F1 drivers’ world title by just 13 points.

Piastri led the championship for 15 rounds and long appeared to be in control of the title race, until a combination of uncharacteristic mistakes and lacklustre performances saw his hopes fizzle out in a disappointing second half of the 2025 season.

Piastri’s mysterious form drop off led to claims from some quarters that McLaren had favoured Norris over Piastri. An Australian politician even waded in to the debate but was slammed by McLaren Racing CEO Brown.

“My relationship with Zak is very good, and it’s gotten stronger the longer we’ve known each other,” Piastri replied when asked about his relationship with Brown ahead of this weekend’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

“He’s certainly good fun and it’s good to have around. Him and Andrea are two people with very different styles that works well together. The relationship between Zak and I is good.

“As a team, we obviously had some tough moments through last year, as any team has, but I think our relationship has only gotten stronger from that.”

McLaren is set to continue to implement its infamous ‘papaya rules’ through the 2026 season, with reigning world champion Norris and Piastri free to race one another within the boundaries laid out by the team’s guidelines.

And Piastri stressed he won’t be resorting to selfish means in a bid to dethrone Norris.

“We’re always going to race for the best interest of the team,” Piastri said. "We’ve always had freedom to race for our own individual results as well.

“Maybe on some occasions we’ve not always made the perfect decision, but the important part is there’s never been any bad intention with that. We’ve had a lot of learning about things we can do differently, things we can do better.

“But I’ve got nothing to prove. I’m certainly not going to have a rebellious streak or anything like that. A pretty quick-fire way to make sure you’re not going to win a championship is go against your own team, so I don’t think that’s a very wise move. We’ve had discussions and worked on things we can do better this year.”

Piastri heads into his home race eyeing the win, following a disappointing result in Melbourne last year. The 24-year-old had been in contention for victory until a late spin dropped him down the order, before Piastri fought back to ninth.

“It would be really special. Every driver wants to win their home race and that’s no different for me,” Piastri said.

“Having it as a season opener, there’s always a large element of the unknown there. I would love to win here. If we’ve got the car to do it – even if we don’t – then I’ll be trying my absolute best to, but we’ll have to wait and see what kind of performance we’ve got.”