Oscar Piastri hoping to avoid F1 fate suffered by Michael Schumcher and Lewis Hamilton

With 12 races down and 12 to go in the 2025 F1 season, Oscar Piastri finds himself leading the drivers' championship.

Victory in Bahrain took Piastri to a lead he has since held, becoming the first Australian since his manager Mark Webber in 2010 to head the drivers' standings.

With half of the season remaining, Piastri is just eight points clear of team-mate Lando Norris in the fight to become McLaren's first drivers' champion since Lewis Hamilton in 2008.

History appears to be on Piastri's side as well. The current season is the 76th drivers' championship, and the driver leading at the halfway mark of the season has gone on to win the title 56 times in the previous 75 championships. 

Remarkably, Hamilton jointly holds the record for 'leading the championship at halfway and not going on to win the title', doing so four times.

These came in his rookie 2007 season, and in 2010 and 2016. The most recent example of the feat happening was in 2021 when Max Verstappen won the drivers' crown. 

Hamilton holds this record with Alain Prost, who could have been an eight-time champion had he converted his 1983, 1984, 1988, and 1990 halfway leads.

Jim Clark, Niki Lauda, Fernando Alonso, Nico Rosberg, and Sebastian Vettel are the other champions to fail to convert. 

In 1997, Michael Schumacher was leading at the halfway point, but infamously became the only driver to be disqualified from a world championship after trying, and failing, to ram Jacques Villeneuve out of the title decider.

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