By Matthew Clayton
Australia’s Formula 1 drivers must have walked under a ladder, encountered a black cat or broken a mirror.
How else to explain a home-race podium hoodoo that will endure for at least another year after McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, armed with the sport’s fastest car and with a realistic chance of a third grand prix win, finished just ninth on Albert Park on Sunday while teammate Lando Norris splashed his way to win in Melbourne for the first time?
Melbourne’s Oscar Piastri was left heartbroken after spinning off in the race’s closing stages.Credit: Getty Images
Since 1996, Australia has had three drivers race at Albert Park – Piastri’s now-manager Mark Webber, Webber’s successor at Red Bull Racing Daniel Ricciardo, and Piastri, Ricciardo’s replacement at McLaren when he came into the sport three years ago.
All three have started on the front row of the grid in their home grand prix. All three have finished fourth at least once in Melbourne. And all three – despite their 19 combined wins elsewhere – have never been able to crack the code.
It’s a curse that’s as enduring as it is baffling.
Webber qualified second in 2010 and again in 2013, but finished ninth and sixth respectively in years when Red Bull was rapid enough to win both championships with teammate Sebastian Vettel.
In 2014, Ricciardo’s first race with Red Bull saw the West Australian cross the line in second place after starting second, but was disqualified after his car failed post-race scrutineering hours later. In 2024, Piastri finished behind Norris in fourth as Ferrari took an unexpected one-two with Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc.
Piastri was stuck on the grass.Credit: Fox Sports
What’s worse for Piastri is that Sunday’s result goes against the trend elsewhere.
On seven occasions, Piastri has qualified second – in five of the previous six before the 2025 season-opener, he’d converted that front-row slot into a podium place, the outlier coming in last year’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix when Verstappen crashed into him at the first corner, sending him to the back before he recovered to 10th.
While that result hurt, Sunday’s stung more as it was a result of a collection of small moments that had large consequences.
On Saturday in qualifying, Norris edged Piastri to pole position by 0.084 seconds, the equivalent of 5.9 metres across the 5.278-kilometre track. That 5.9 metres meant Norris had a clear run to the first corner after the start on a slippery surface soaked by hours of rain where Piastri, keen to cover off Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, ran wide into the second turn and was demoted by the reigning world champion.
It took Piastri 17 laps to regain second place, and after initially being told by his team to hold position as he zeroed in on Norris, the 23-year-old dipped the left-hand side of his car into the treacherous gravel trap at turn six on lap 32 to slip two seconds adrift.
When a heavy rain shower lashed the final sector of the circuit on lap 44, Norris ran deep into the gravel at the right-handed turn 12 and managed to recover to the track. Piastri ran deeper, slewed across the track, and then spun helplessly on the sodden grass at the penultimate corner, Verstappen – and most of the rest of the field – tiptoeing past as the Australian desperately attempted to find enough traction to spin his car around.
It’s those tiny moments – a matter of milliseconds in qualifying, a first-corner bobble, a wide moment here and a gravel trap excursion there – that offered some justification for McLaren, at least for a time, telling their drivers to hold station on Sunday.
Piastri’s race was ruined when he spun off he track. Credit: Fox Sports
“I’m faster but OK,” Piastri replaced on the radio.
Unpopular as those team orders are for Australian fans to stomach, McLaren has clearly the sport’s fastest car and a second championship drought in two years to snap.
After ending its 26-year gap between constructors’ titles last season, the British team is now aiming to win its first drivers’ title since 2008, when Lewis Hamilton took the first of his seven world championships. The gap between its drivers is miniscule, but – for now – it exists. Sunday showed why.
With F1 set for a significant regulatory reset in 2026, teams will soon face the difficult decision of when to pursue performance for a rule set that becomes obsolete in Abu Dhabi in December, and when to switch focus on what’s to come from next year onwards.
On Saturday, Mercedes driver George Russell suggested McLaren had so much pace in hand over the rest that it could turn off the 2025 tap now to focus on the following season and still win both titles this season.
That Norris still won a grand prix 24 hours later that was interrupted by three safety cars, held in cold, blustery conditions and contained enough trapdoors and tripwires to negate a car advantage is a sign Russell might be right, and one that suggests Piastri will have more chances to win this season.
That alone will ease some of the pain of a home podium – at worst – that was washed away in a chaotic Melbourne afternoon.
