F1 Destructors’ Championship revealed, Oscar Piastri costing McLaren millions
A brutal new championship has emerged in F1 and it’s exposed more sad news about former Drivers’ Championship leader Oscar Piastri.
An ominous new list has revealed who is top of the Destructor’s Championship.
The table ranks the current F1 drivers on who has cost their team the most amount of damage this season from crashes, The Sun reports.
Gabriel Bortoleto has been thrust to the top of the list after his horror crash in the sprint race of the Brazilian Grand Prix days ago.
The 21-year-old thankfully was unhurt but was sent to the medical centre as a precaution.
He then crashed again at his home race on the opening lap of Sunday’s Grand Prix, bringing his total expenses from the weekend to over A$5 million.
It nudged him ahead of the previous leader Yuki Tsunoda, who damaged his front wing in Sao Paulo, meaning Red Bull have spent around A$A4.4m on his repairs.
Championship leader Lando Norris is third on the list after dramatically crashing out of qualifying in Saudi Arabia and mowing into the back of Oscar Piastri in Canada.
The McLaren driver’s total repair costs amount to around $4 million.
Aussie Jack Doohan has made it into the top ten despite only taking part in the opening six rounds of the year with $3.2m worth of damage.
Alpine had to splash the cash for Doohan on a huge, high-speed crash in Japan.
Golden boy Max Verstappen is bottom of the list, having taken on the least amount of damage this year.
He cost Red Bull A$354,000 for minor incidents in Miami, Austria and Brazil.
Meanwhile, Oscar Piastri’s season has come with a surprisingly heavy financial toll for McLaren — with his crashes this season amounting to roughly A$2.8 million worth of damage in 2025.
Some of that comes from a nasty incident in China, where Piastri described his car as “pretty destroyed” after being caught in a chain reaction.
He said he spent much of the race in “damage-limitation” mode — the back end of his McLaren was visibly wrecked, and while he held on to eighth place, the impact clearly had a cost.
Another major hit for McLaren came in Canada, when Lando Norris misjudged an overtake and clipped Piastri from behind.
The crash destroyed parts of Piastri’s car, including his diffuser and underfloor, and forced overnight repairs.
Taken together, those incidents contribute heavily to Piastri’s multimillion-dollar damage bill. McLaren’s total repair cost for him (plus Norris) is estimated at around A$6.8 million.
Of course, Piastri isn’t the only driver burning through budget because of crashes. Across the 2025 season, teams have reportedly spent more than US$34.2 million (roughly A$51 million) on car repairs.
For McLaren, the financial burden is more than just the cost of parts. High repair bills mean fewer spare components, which can limit the team’s ability to bring upgrades or recover quickly after crashes.
With F1’s budget cap still very much in force, every dollar spent repairing a wrecked car is a dollar not spent on performance improvements.
Piastri himself has acknowledged some of the pressure. After his Chinese GP trouble, he said the damage was “significant” and admitted he wasn’t sure how much time had been lost on track.
Despite that, he’s remained focused on the championship fight, and McLaren appears to be balancing its ambitions — pushing for race wins while keeping an eye on the repair ledger.
Ultimately, while Piastri’s pace has helped McLaren challenge at the front, his crash-repair bill is now part of the conversation.
- This article was first published by The Sun and was republished with permission
- with news.com.au
Originally published as F1 Destructors’ Championship revealed, Oscar Piastri costing McLaren millions
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