15 races as championship leader but no title: Oscar Piastri’s historic F1 heartbreak. Oscar Piastri set a unique Formula 1 record in 2025.

Piastri the new Reutemann? 15 races leading without winning the title, never happened before

Oscar Piastri’s 2025 season was one for the history books – though not in the way any driver hopes. The Australian McLaren driver led the championship for 15 out of 24 races, including a remarkable streak of consecutive events, yet he failed to secure the World Championship by the end of the year. In fact, he even finished the season in third place. No driver in Formula 1 history had led the championship for so many races without ultimately winning the title.

Parallels with Reutemann

Thanks in part to longer F1 calendars, Oscar Piastri became the driver in the sport’s history with the most races leading the championship in a single season without ever claiming the title. The previous record was held by Argentine Carlos Reutemann, who led the World Championship for 13 races in his career but never had the satisfaction of celebrating a championship at the end of a season. In 1981, Carlos Reutemann led the standings for ten consecutive races but was ultimately overtaken by Nelson Piquet in the final round in Las Vegas.

The great near-misses

Moss, the eternal second

Oscar Piastri also set a new record for consecutive days spent leading the championship without winning it: 189 days, surpassing Carlos Reutemann’s 154 days in that fateful 1981 season. Among Formula 1’s great “near-misses,” one cannot forget Sir Stirling Moss, who finished second in the championship four years in a row from 1955 to 1958. Moss led the standings for a total of eight races in those seasons, including a maximum streak of four consecutive races as leader in 1958, when the calendar had only 11 events. That year, the title went to his fellow Briton Michael Hawthorn by just one point.