– McLaren driver Oscar Piastri gives a mixed interim review of his 2026 Formula 1 season. Because from his point of view, there have been “unfortunately more lows than highs” up to the summer break.
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The numbers confirm this impression: With 92 points, Piastri is only in seventh place in the drivers’ standings, his teammate Lando Norris has pulled away by 36 points. Among the top team drivers, only Isack Hadjar has performed worse than Piastri. But: Piastri had at least two highlights with P2 in Suzuka and P3 in Miami.
“There were good moments, less good ones – and everything in between,” Piastri said in retrospect. “For us as a team, the first half of the season did not go as we had imagined. Especially compared to last year. Our performance fluctuated quite a bit.”
Why McLaren “crashed” after Miami
Because after Suzuka and Miami, there were race weekends that went less successfully for McLaren. Piastri can only partly explain this so far. He suspects: The adjustment of the Formula 1 rules before the Miami race weekend could have played a role.
“Since the changes, you can drive the car much more naturally. Even in Suzuka, you had to drive the car in a rather unusual way to be fast. I think we implemented these rather unnatural requirements very well.” Afterwards, however, McLaren got into trouble.
McLaren: Left behind in the development race?
According to Piastri, this is also related to the technical development race: “All teams brought updates. We also added, but maybe not all of our innovations worked as we had hoped.”
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Therefore, Suzuka and Miami are “in retrospect rather the exception than our actual performance level,” explained Piastri. The goal for the rest of the 2026 Formula 1 season must therefore be to make the exception the rule. “Hopefully we will succeed. I personally also have to become a bit more consistent.”
Especially in qualifying, Piastri has recently lost ground: Since Barcelona, Norris has been the faster McLaren driver in time trials, after Piastri had been ahead three times in a row at the start of the season. Currently, the direct comparison stands at 4:7 from Piastri’s perspective. In races, it is balanced at 5:5.
Clear progress with the Mercedes engines
At least: Piastri and McLaren are now handling the Mercedes engine better than a few months ago. Piastri said: “Now it is much more about how the car feels and how the balance is.”
This last point still puzzles McLaren: “Especially at the last two race weekends, the car was definitely more difficult to drive for some reason. Whether this was due to the track characteristics, the wind, or the asphalt, we do not know exactly yet.”
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