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'Back in the fight': Oscar seeking Singapore slingshot
Ian Chadband, AAP • October 9th, 2026 7:24 am
Oscar Piastri hopes for an upturn in fortunes at the Singapore Grand Prix with his title hopes over | Photo: EPA
Oscar Piastri's world F1 title hopes may already be officially over -- but, ever optimistic, he's still hoping to be "back in the fight a bit more" for race honours at the Singapore Grand Prix.
Australia's big hope, who's endured a trying season attempting to get to grips with his erratic, under-performing McLaren while adapting his driving style, has long since been out of the title race but that was confirmed, mathematically, in Malaysia last weekend when he came home sixth in the Bahrain Grand Prix.
That put him an unassailable 192 points adrift of runaway championship leader Kimi Antonelli, in seventh place with seven races left. Such a scenario would have seemed unthinkable after his third-place finish in last year's title race, which saw him in contention even in the very last race.
Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in Singapore where they're hoping for more out of their McLarens | Photo: EPA
This year, it's all been a very different story as Piastri hasn't won a race and hasn't even made a podium in the last 12 grand prix stretching back to Miami at the start of May.
But asked in the build-up to the Singapore Grand Prix on Thursday if he thought he could get back to the podium this weekend, the Australian responded positively: "I think so ... hopefully, we can be a bit more competitive.
"We know we've not been as competitive as we would have liked the last couple of weekends. In Malaysia, sixth was more or less all we we could have done, given our competitiveness and also some of the decisions we made.
"It's a very different circuit here, obviously compared to Malaysia, so hopefully we can be back in the fight a bit more."
It's a sprint weekend in perhaps the hottest, most demanding race of all for the drivers at the Marina Bay Street Circuit.
"Definitely having just one practice session on a track like this makes things a lot more difficult," said Piastri. "You don't have that same amount of time to build up to things nicely, you need to perform pretty much straight away, so it'll be tough."
Meanwhile, Piastri's teammate Lando Norris, who's still been outperforming his Australian colleague for most of the campaign despite a recent problem with lack of straight-line speed with his car, is hopeful that all will be rectified this weekend.
Lando Norris's reign as world champ could officially end in Singapore | Photo: AP
After finishing ninth in Malaysia and being off the pace the week before in Azerbaijan before a collision ended his race, Norris reflected that the issue may have cost him two or three grid places in qualifying for both races.
"They put a lot of work into trying to figure out things and I'm hopeful that it'll be better this weekend, but honestly, I have to get out on track and see first," Norris conceded, hoping to get back to the winning ways of Hungary and the Netherlands.
Norris is fifth in the standings, still 132 points behind Antonelli, but 60 points ahead of Piastri. His world title defence could officially be over on Sunday too if he drops even further behind his likely young Italian successor.
