Australia dreams big: can Oscar Piastri end a 15-year wait for F1 leadership?. Oscar Piastri could become the first Australian since Mark Webber in 2010 to lead the F1 World Championship.

Oscar Piastri one step away from the top
It will be 3 a.m. on Monday in Melbourne, Oscar Piastri’s hometown, when the red lights go out in Jeddah and the Saudi Arabian GP begins. McLaren’s #81 didn’t manage to grab pole position in qualifying, but he will still start from the front row, alongside reigning world champion Max Verstappen. Much further behind, in tenth position, is his teammate Lando Norris, the championship leader, who threw away a strong qualifying result by crashing at the start of Q3 and taking himself out of contention for pole.

Before this race, the championship standings had Norris holding a three-point lead over Oscar Piastri, with Max Verstappen trailing the Briton by eight points and the Australian by five. Today, therefore, Oscar Piastri has a major opportunity—by winning or finishing ahead of Norris without a victory from the reigning champion—to seize the top spot in the championship. Australian media are buzzing with excitement, as such a result has not been seen in the land of the kangaroos for 15 years.

The last time: Webber in 2010
The last Aussie to lead the F1 World Championship was Mark Webber, during the 2010 season. The then-Red Bull driver—who, in a twist of fate, is now Oscar Piastri’s manager—was the sole leader of an incredibly tight championship for four races in total. On October 10 of that year, at the end of the Japanese GP and with just three rounds to go, the standings showed him in the lead with a 14-point margin over Alonso and Vettel.

That season then took a disastrous turn for Webber, who scored only 22 points in the final three races, compared to Fernando Alonso’s 46 and Sebastian Vettel’s 50—the latter going on to win the title. Since then, no Australian driver has led the championship—not even Daniel Ricciardo, who, despite eight career wins, never finished higher than third in the standings. Oscar Piastri could thus write a new chapter in his country’s sporting history today. The hope across the Oceanic continent is that this is just the first step in a triumphant charge that this time doesn’t fall short at the finish.