F1 star Oscar Piastri brands rival Fernando Alonso 'master of chaos'

Fernando Alonso, Oscar Piastri, Social, 2024 — Photo: © IMAGO

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F1 star Oscar Piastri brands rival Fernando Alonso 'master of chaos'

Piastri summed it all up

Dan Ripley Global Editor

Professional F1 journalist and analyst

Tuesday 6 October 2026 21:45

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Fernando Alonso produced one of his finest recent performances at the Bahrain Grand Prix, shocking many up and down the pitlane.

Aston Martin's problems this season are well documented. Despite having Adrian Newey as chief designer, the chassis has only been good enough for the midfield, while their Honda power unit is the worst on the entire grid.

As a result, Aston Martin only have seven points in the constructors' championship, with Alonso having scored all of them including four at Sepang where he took an incredible eighth place.

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Alonso's miracle drive

The two-time world champion insisted after qualifying 12th on Saturday that the team didn't have a realistic chance of gaining any points, but then the drama of Sunday followed.

A delayed start, an aborted start two safety cars and a virtual safety car brought mayhem to the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, and Alonso kept his head to navigate the madness.

Having made an incredible move on Racing Bull's Arvid Lindblad for 10th late on after turn two, the Spaniard gained another two places after George Russell's power unit failed for Mercedes, while Lando Norris went into the gravel under the safety car to try and avoid hitting Oscar Piastri.

Alonso sneaked ahead of the world champion, before keeping him at bay with a superb defensive drive in the final laps.

McLaren shocked at Alonso display

In the team radio to Piastri after the race, his race engineer Tom Stallard gave the Australian star the full rundown of the top 10 points finishers after the race.

After a brief delay, Stallard confirmed to Piastri "yes, you heard that right, Alonso P8".

Piastri, who finished sixth, took a moment to gather his thoughts before responding with "well... always the master of chaos."

📻 Le dicen a Piastri cómo ha quedado la carrera
"Sisi, has oído bien, Alonso P8"
🗣️ Piastri: "Always the MASTER of CHAOS" https://t.co/Qcjz8OrIkX
— Nachez (@Nachez98) October 4, 2026

Piastri admits McLaren not good enough

Even without Norris's bizarre near-miss in taking out his team-mate, McLaren would have ended up with a P7 and P8 finish, had Russell's engine not expired, putting them behind both Mercedes, both Red Bulls and both Ferraris.

Piastri has now admitted that the world champions just were not good enough at Sepang.

He said: “Overall, I'm reasonably happy. I think it went pretty well on a personal note. I felt like I did a pretty good job today, which was good. Unfortunately we just weren't quick enough to really do that much.

“The last Safety Car was a bit of a shame, because I was catching Charles [Leclerc] pretty quick. But no, apart from that, just a tricky afternoon. We didn't quite make the right calls, and ultimately we weren't quick enough, so that was the biggest thing.”

"I think Red Bull clearly here have been incredibly fast, for sure. I think it's been the strongest they've been.

“Clearly whatever they put on the car in Baku's been a big step forward for them, because last weekend without the bad Qualifying they had, they probably would have… well, I mean Max [Verstappen] nearly won the race anyway, and this weekend Max did win the race, so they've been very, very strong the last couple of weekends.

“I think us and Ferrari seem a little bit in a similar ballpark, but that ballpark is not fighting for race wins, so we need to improve. We know that, and we'll try our best to make sure we try and improve.”

Written by

Dan Ripley - Global Editor

I've been a massive F1 fan since the mid 1990s and continue to study the history of the sport long before that. As an experienced motor sport reporter covering F1, MotoGP and the LeMans 24 Hour race, being part of GPFans has allowed me to work with a diverse team with all sorts of different backgrounds in watching the sport and given me a greater appreciation of F1.

View full biography

F1 McLaren Aston Martin Oscar Piastri Fernando Alonso Bahrain Grand Prix