谁昨晚睡得最差：奥斯卡·皮亚斯特里
2025年8月31日，皮亚斯特里在赞德福特赢得荷兰大奖赛，诺里斯因机油泄漏退赛，赛后表示只想“吃个汉堡然后回家”，当时他落后皮亚斯特里34分。
昨晚睡得最差的人：奥斯卡·皮亚斯特里
奥斯卡·皮亚斯特里不可能忘了怎么赛车——然而短短一年时间，他在一级方程式中的处境已经发生了翻天覆地的变化
2025年8月31日，奥斯卡·皮亚斯特里在赞德沃特赢得了荷兰大奖赛，而兰多·诺里斯则因漏油退赛。面对那份苦涩的失望，诺里斯说他只想"买个汉堡回家"。当时他在车手锦标赛积分榜上落后皮亚斯特里34分，而我当天的赛后报道标题就在问：赞德沃特这一站是否实际上已经决定了年度冠军的归属。
如今回头看，那个世界几乎像是一个超现实的平行宇宙。在那个宇宙里，皮亚斯特里即将成为一级方程式世界冠军；诺里斯却不知怎么被贴上了标签——一个每当关键时刻来临总是差一口气的天才；基米·安东内利只有64分，而乔治·拉塞尔有184分。我愿意坦率承认，我自己当时也是那些暗自嘀咕托托·沃尔夫是否终究看走了眼这位意大利小将的人之一。
如今，诺里斯已经成为了世界冠军，就连尼科·罗斯伯格也认为安东内尔 有点像是下一个埃尔顿·塞纳，而如果那些最乐观的人真的相信迈凯伦还能在2026年的冠军争夺中有一席之地，那他们心里想的恐怕也只有诺里斯一个人。
在短短12个月里，皮亚斯特里从一个“未来冠军”变成了越来越像是迈凯伦非官方二号车手的人。他的经纪人马克·韦伯曾被许多人视为这位澳大利亚车手通往世界冠军之路上的重要拼图，如今似乎也沦为了“皮亚斯特里团队”中的边缘人物。而且，随着这位25岁车手在赞德沃特落后诺里斯32秒完赛，目前在积分榜上又落后他55分，你可能会觉得这已经说明了一切。数字通常不会说谎。
听到安德烈亚·斯特拉盛赞诺里斯在抓地力低、轮胎硬的条件下充分发挥了他非凡的天赋，而对皮亚斯特里，斯特拉却接着说，这位澳大利亚人必须用2026年的迈凯伦做出违背自己驾驶直觉的操作，才能勉强接近发挥出赛车的全部潜力——这对皮亚斯特里来说一定很不好受。
倒不是说斯特拉做错了什么。这位前法拉利车手出身的人可能是一级方程式里最有外交手腕的车队领队。他把文字游戏玩得炉火纯青，绝不会让哪怕最细微的印象流露出来，让人觉得他把一位车手当一号、另一位当二号。
但一年过去了，很多一直在Reddit等平台上坚持认为诺里斯才是迈凯伦暗中偏爱的车手——尤其是在首席执行官扎克·布朗眼中——的车迷现在觉得自己得到了印证。就好像诺里斯是长子，而皮亚斯特里'只不过'是他们始终没能学会同样去疼爱的养子。
皮亚斯特里不太可能在短短12个月里就忘了怎么驾驶赛车。但他输掉2025年总冠军的原因之一，或许是在赞德沃特之后，那种让他免于从进攻模式切换到保分模式的随和沉稳突然消失了。而且，2026年这一代一级方程式赛车似乎也不是他最喜欢玩的那种'玩具'。
"很遗憾，这不是第一场节奏就是上不来的比赛，"皮亚斯特里在赛后接受电视采访区（TV pen）采访时叹着气，试图解释自己第六名的成绩。几米之外，诺里斯独自一人坐在国际汽联的新闻发布会上，微笑着说出这样的话："我确实正在消除自己在赛道上的弱点，而且我已经没有太多弱点了。"
当皮亚斯特里从雷诺转投迈凯伦——这是一桩合同条款错综复杂、充满暗箱操作色彩的一级方程式近年最具争议的转会之一——他带着天才少年的美誉而来。在进入一级方程式之前，他几乎赢得了所有能赢的冠军；在与诺里斯搭档度过一个稳健但算不上惊艳的新秀赛季后，2025年的大部分时间里，他似乎都在证明外界的每一分炒作都是物有所值。
当诺里斯公开谈论自己的情绪和弱点时——许多人将此解读为他盔甲上一道非常人性化的裂痕——皮亚斯特里却话不多。他只是不断地赢得比赛。冷血、沉着冷静，没有多余的表演。
但2026年的F1已经与室内卡丁车场上业余车手所熟悉的那种赛车相去甚远——在那里，归根结底，胆子最大的人只要比所有人都更快、更干净地过弯并且避免麻烦，就能获胜。新的F1更像一盘棋。胆量依然重要，但巧妙地调配能量输出等复杂参数、并从轮胎中榨取巅峰性能，已经成为压倒一切的关键。
或者换一种说法：曾几何时，仅凭成为驾驶赛车最快的人就能让你成为世界冠军。在一个整体水准可能达到历史最高的车手中，仅凭这一点已经远远不够了。
把整个2026年的车手阵容都放回2025年的赛车上，将是一项非常有趣的实验。皮亚斯特里会重新开始获胜吗？刘易斯·汉密尔顿还会在法拉利挣扎吗？归根结底，这无关紧要。F1世界冠军是在现实世界中赢得的。平行宇宙只存在于Reddit上。不过对车迷来说，沉浸其中也可以是极大的乐趣。
皮亚斯特里这样的车手和安东内利这样的车手是有区别的。安东内利在蒙扎的第一场一级方程式练习赛上就如闪电般横空出世。所有人都看得出来，这孩子非同凡响。他是个天生的天才，生来就拥有正确的直觉。
皮亚斯特里看起来更像是那种需要多一点时间来适应新环境，之后才能真正大放异彩的车手。
这并不是说他天生就缺乏天赋。如果一两年后，头条新闻讲述的是一个完全不同的故事，我丝毫不会感到意外。汉密尔顿已经证明，真正伟大的车手永远不应该被轻易否定。
也许下次当皮亚斯特里因为想得太多而彻夜难眠时，他可以抓住这个榜样来给自己打气……
英文原文
Who slept worst last night: Oscar Piastri
Oscar Piastri can't have forgotten how to race – and yet his standing in Formula 1 has changed dramatically in the space of just one year
On 31 August 2025, Oscar Piastri won the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, while Lando Norris retired with an oil leak. Faced with that bitter disappointment, Norris said all he wanted to do was "grab a burger and go home". He was 34 points behind Piastri in the championship, and my own race report that day carried a headline asking whether Zandvoort had effectively decided the title.
Looking back now, that world almost feels like some surreal parallel universe. One in which Piastri was on the verge of becoming a Formula 1 world champion; Norris had somehow been labelled the perennial talent who, when push came to shove, could never quite get the job done; Kimi Antonelli had 64 points to George Russell's 184. I will readily admit that I, too, was among those quietly wondering whether Toto Wolff might just have got it wrong with the young Italian after all.
Now, Norris is the world champion, even Nico Rosberg regards Antonelli as something akin to the next Ayrton Senna, and if the most bullish optimists genuinely believe McLaren can still have a say in the 2026 title fight, they are probably thinking of Norris alone.
In the space of 12 months, Piastri has gone from champion-in-the-making to what increasingly feels like McLaren's unofficial number two. His manager Mark Webber, whom many once regarded as an important piece of the puzzle in the Australian's path to the world championship, has seemingly been reduced to a peripheral figure in Team Piastri. And with the 25-year-old finishing 32 seconds behind Norris at Zandvoort and now trailing him by 55 points in the championship, you might think that says everything. Numbers usually don't lie.
It must hurt Piastri to hear Andrea Stella wax lyrical about Norris fully exploiting his exceptional talent when grip is low and tyres are hard. And then, in the same breath, explain that Piastri has to do things with the 2026 McLaren that go against his natural driving instincts simply to get anywhere near extracting the car's full potential.
Not that Stella is doing anything wrong. The former Ferrari man is probably the most diplomatic team principal in Formula 1. He plays the game of words so skillfully that he would never allow even the faintest impression to emerge that he regards one of his drivers as number one and the other as number two.
But a year on, plenty of those fans who have always insisted on Reddit and elsewhere that Norris was McLaren's secret favourite all along – particularly in the eyes of CEO Zak Brown – now feel vindicated. As if Norris were the first-born son, while Piastri was 'merely' the adopted child they never quite learned to love in the same way.
It seems unlikely that Piastri has forgotten how to race a car in the space of 12 months. But perhaps one of the reasons he lost the 2025 championship was that, after Zandvoort, the easy-going composure that might have protected him from switching from attack mode to points-management mode in response to his championship lead suddenly disappeared. And because the 2026 generation of Formula 1 cars does not appear to be the kind of toy he most enjoys playing with.
"Unfortunately it's not the first race where the pace just hasn't been there," Piastri sighed after the race as he tried to explain his sixth-place finish in the TV pen. A few metres away, Norris sat all by himself in the FIA press conference, smiling and saying things like: "I'm certainly eliminating my weaknesses on track, and I don't have so many."
When Piastri moved from Renault to McLaren in one of the more controversial transfers in recent Formula 1 history – a contractually convoluted cloak-and-dagger affair – he arrived with the reputation of a potential prodigy. Before reaching Formula 1, he had won (almost) everything there was to win, and after a solid, if not spectacular, rookie season alongside Norris, he spent much of 2025 appearing to justify every ounce of the hype.
While Norris spoke openly about his emotions and weaknesses – something many interpreted as a very human crack in his armour – Piastri did not say much. He simply won motor races. Cold-blooded, unflappable, stripped of unnecessary theatrics.
But Formula 1 in 2026 has moved a long way from the version of motor racing familiar to amateur racers at indoor kart tracks, where ultimately the guy with the biggest balls wins by driving through the corners faster and cleaner than everyone else while staying out of trouble. The new Formula 1 is more like a game of chess. Having the biggest balls still matters, but intelligently juggling complex parameters such as energy deployment and extracting peak performance from the tyres has taken on overriding importance.
Or, to put it another way: there was a time when being the fastest man at driving a racing car could make you world champion. In a field whose overall standard is probably higher than ever before, that alone is no longer remotely enough.
It would make for a fascinating experiment to put the entire 2026 grid back into the 2025 cars. Would Piastri start winning again? Would Lewis Hamilton still struggle with the Ferrari? Ultimately, it is irrelevant. Formula 1 world championships are won in the real world. Parallel universes exist only on Reddit. And, for fans, it can be great fun to lose yourself in them.
There is a difference between the Piastris of this world and the Antonellis. Antonelli burst onto the scene like a bolt of lightning in his very first Formula 1 practice session at Monza. Everyone could see that this kid was something special. A natural talent, born with the right instincts.
Piastri seems more like the kind of racing driver who needs a little more time to adapt to new circumstances before he can truly flourish.
That is not to suggest that he is somehow inherently less gifted. It would not surprise me in the slightest if, in a year or two, the headlines were telling a very different story again. Hamilton has proven that the genuinely great drivers should never be written off.
Perhaps that is an example Piastri can cling to the next time all that overthinking keeps him awake at night...
Motorsport.com ·
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