Oscar Piastri warns ‘fundamental’ F1 2026 issues ‘won’t be very easy’ to fix

Oscar Piastri was diplomatic in assessing the driving experience in the new era of Formula 1 car, though admitted solutions “won’t be very easy” to come by.

Some of his colleagues, including McLaren teammate Lando Norris, gave more scathing reviews of how the 2026 cars operate, but Piastri feels other circuits will be less limited than Albert Park over the new regulations’ potential.

Oscar Piastri raises concerns over fundamental issues with 2026 Formula 1 regulations

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Piastri qualified fifth for his hometown race, sharing the third row with his teammate, while Mercedes driver George Russell was on pole – over eight tenths clear of Piastri’s best time.

While the gap in performance appears to be a large one, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella spoke of his confidence in how learning the best understanding of Mercedes’ power unit will bring the team performance in the short term.

Given the criticism surrounding the new cars, however, Piastri gave a measured response as to how he managed his session, but was concerned that major parts of the regulations may not be easily fixable.

“I think everyone can see the state of things,” Piastri told PlanetF1.com and other media after qualifying.

“I think it will probably improve a bit, but there’s clearly some fundamental things that won’t be very easy, and I don’t really know what we do about that.

“At the moment, if you lift, you can harvest 350 kilowatts. So the super clip at 350 is the same as a lift. So the difference is, one of them, you actually off the throttle and in control of it, but the other one, you’re at full throttle. I’m not sure it’s any more helpful.

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“It’ll be better at different tracks. We’ll have different challenges at other tracks because the tracks are kind of in two categories at the moment of being energy-starved and energy-rich, and there’s a problem with either of those things.

“But I think when you’re energy starved like this, it’s a lot more obvious to everyone watching.

“I don’t know what the Mercedes lap looks like, but we were lifting and coasting three times a lap. We had two super clips through the lap, and in some corners, we’ve got effectively 450 horsepower less, so it’s a massive challenge to get your head around. It’s tough for everyone.”

Drivers were seen starting laps by coasting towards the grid before applying full throttle, in order to save as much battery power as possible for the start of the lap.

Piastri does not believe that to be the best solution for the cars now, but is simply working towards how best to optimise what is available to him.

“I’m sure everyone’s seen how we have to start a qualifying lap now, which isn’t great, and there’s just a lot of things you have to do to optimise what we’ve got, basically,” he explained.

“So I think for me, the understanding of things is okay, like I know more or less what I can do what I can’t do. It’s just that, in an ideal world, would you be doing the things that we can and can’t do? Probably not.”

Additional reporting by Mat Coch

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