Oscar Piastri’s mindset coach has explained how the F1 star stopped ‘bed rotting’ and ‘doom scrolling’ on his mobile phone – then reaped the rewards on the track as he came tantalisingly close to winning the world drivers’ championship.
Bed rotting refers to lying awake in bed for extended periods while doing things like eating or watching videos, while doom scrolling means habitually viewing content on your phone.
According to renowned Aussie mindset coach Emma Murray – who has also worked with the Richmond AFL team and Olympic gold medallist Cate Campbell – Piastri struggled with both before breaking the habits in preparation for last season, when he finished a close third in the drivers’ standings.
‘For a long time he was leading the world championship at 24 years old and I said to him, “Oscar, how are you going to tell the world that you’ve won the world championship with this simple change to not scroll in bed?”‘ Murray told the Julesfmshow.
‘He moved his phone away from his bed and changed his entire morning routine.
‘We just had a rule on days off and on breaks not to have what we called bed rotting … when you lie in bed and just on your phone all day because you think you’re tired and think you need a break.
Like many Aussies, Oscar Piastri (pictured) found himself spending far too much time on his mobile phone
The F1 ace’s success in breaking the bed-rotting and doom-scrolling habit played a big part in his amazing success on the track last year, according to his mindset coach
‘But you are just literally rotting, and you feel worse and that’s when you spiral with your mental health.
‘So sleep, and that phone at the end of the day is non-negotiable.’
Murray added that Piastri began writing in a journal, and the effects were ‘incredible’.
‘In those first 30 minutes [after waking up] Oscar introduced no phone, journaling and meditation to his morning routine on race weekends.’
The simple fix of moving his phone away from his bed so he couldn’t grab it as soon as he woke up came before Piastri had easily the best year of his career behind the wheel.
McLaren’s car was a step ahead of the rest of the field as soon as the season started in Australia, where Piastri finished a disappointing ninth.
He won the next grand prix in China, the fourth race of the season in Bahrain, then took the chequered flag in Saudi Arabia to become the first Australian to lead the drivers’ standings since 2010.
Victories in Miami, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands followed, but Piastri ended up finishing third in the championship close behind Max Verstappen and winner Lando Norris after a series of controversies that resulted in fans accusing McLaren of favouring his British teammate.
Piastri’s mindset coach Emma Murray (pictured) said bed-rotting and excessive phone use can make people ‘spiral with your mental health’
The 24-year-old Aussie finished third in the drivers’ championship last year in a dominant car. His 2026 McLaren (pictured) will be an unknown quantity until the end of qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix
The 24-year-old went into the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix with an outside chance of taking the title, but couldn’t close the gap despite beating Norris to second place as Verstappen took the win.
Piastri will be hoping that his car is once again the quickest in the field for this weekend’s race in Melbourne, as F1 fans wait to see the effect of the biggest regulation changes the sport has seen for decades.
This year’s cars are lighter, smaller and run active aerodynamics that let drivers reduce drag on the front and rear wings with the push of a button, but the big difference to 2025 comes with the cars’ power units.
They’re still turbocharged hybrid engines, but this season the battery creates approximately 50 per cent of the power, as opposed to the 20 per cent that part of the powerplant has been making since 2014.
Preseason testing is a notoriously fickle guide to how cars will perform once the real racing begins, but the consensus among most experts is that Mercedes has an advantage over the rest of the field this year thanks to its power unit.
McLaren – which will also run the Mercedes engine – has been put roughly on par with the other major manufacturers in the field, Ferrari and Red Bull.
That’s because Mercedes will be able to do a better job of designing their car around the power unit from the ground up compared to customer teams like McLaren, Alpine and Williams.
