Oscar Piastri receives Christian Horner backing for F1 2026 season
Oscar Piastri has been backed to bounce back from his 2025 disappointment.
Christian Horner has backed Oscar Piastri to get “better and better” after a 2025 season that will have “hurt him.”
For much of last campaign, Piastri was the odds-on favourite for the title but fell away from the race after an underwhelming end to the year, ultimately finishing third in the Drivers’ Standings.
Oscar Piastri recieves Christian Horner backing for 2026 F1 season
After Zandvoort and the conclusion of the 15th race of the season, Piastri held a 34-point lead over team-mate Lando Norris but a poor run of form in the latter third of the year resulted in the Briton finishing 13 points ahead and winning the title.
Now, many are looking to Piastri to see how he bounces back from such a disappointment and one man backing the Australian is former Red Bull boss Christian Horner.
The 52-year-old appeared on Australia’s Today programme ahead of a speaking tour in the country and said Piastri would be “motivated” by the events of last season.
“Oscar will have learned a huge amount from last year,” Horner said. “I thought he was odds-on favourite going into the summer break, and unfortunately, it sort of fell apart for him at the end of the season.
“But he’ll learn from that, and that will have hurt him, and ultimately motivated him.
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“You forget the guy’s only done a couple of seasons in Formula 1. He’s so relatively inexperienced that I think he’s just going to get better and better and he’s going to be fully motivated for the season ahead.”
Horner will soon travel to Australia to begin a speaking tour that will see him appear in a number of cities across the country. The former team principal said it would be an opportunity to reflect on his career to date.
“I’m looking forward to coming,” he said. “I’m coming to Melbourne on the 24th of Feb and I’ve been invited to do this speaking tour, and it’s a great way just to reflect on my career.
“The highs, the lows, the sport, the drivers we’ve had, the Aussies that I’ve had drive for me, and really give an insight into some of the behind-the-scenes stuff that the people don’t know.
“Some of the challenges that there’s been over the years and hopefully it’ll be interesting, and people will enjoy a bit of a behind-the-scenes insight into the challenges of Formula 1.”
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