Oscar Piastri questions Mercedes straight-line gains after Lewis Hamilton claim

Lewis Hamilton recently highlighted Mercedes’ ‘Straight Line Mode’ as a key weapon, and Oscar Piastri admitted to an “interesting” observation of how it closed in China.

Nonetheless, Piastri is unsure just how much of a role this plays in the impressive performance of the Mercedes W17. Piastri believes that, on the power unit side, lap times are proving sensitive to “small differences” that will “add up incredibly quickly”. As such, from lap to lap even, a driver can have “wildly different” speed in a straight line.

Oscar Piastri questions Mercedes straight-line speed advantage

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Mercedes has proved the class of the field so far in F1 2026, locking out the front row at all three rounds.

The Silver Arrows also boast a 100 per cent victory record, George Russell having won the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, before Kimi Antonelli took the chequered flag in China and Japan.

McLaren provided Mercedes with arguably its sternest test of F1 2026 yet in Japan.

Piastri’s storming start put him into the lead, and the Melbourne native was holding off a recovering Russell.

Ultimately, a Safety Car appearance was timed perfectly for Antonelli, who was able to make a cheap pit stop to grab hold of the race lead. He duly pulled away from Piastri to win by over 13 seconds.

Ahead of the Japanese GP, Piastri was told that Ferrari’s drivers believed Mercedes’ Straight Line Mode active aero to be more powerful.

Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton had said at the Chinese GP that when Mercedes “open up the ESM – that’s when they take a huge step“.

Piastri was asked whether this is what McLaren – a Mercedes engine customer – is seeing also.

“Not sure. We definitely saw the way the Straight Mode closes in China, which was interesting, but I don’t know if it’s anything to do with Straight Mode itself.

“I think we kind of understand where we’re losing a bit in terms of the power unit usage.

“I’m sure maybe there’s something there as well, but there’s just little bits everywhere, and especially on the power unit side of things, small differences, or seemingly small differences, add up incredibly quickly.

“And even teams from lap to lap, or driver to driver within the same team, you make mistakes at one point and it somehow helps you at a different point in the lap, or weird stuff happens. So I think even looking at driver to driver within the same team, or even lap to lap from the same driver, the straight-line speed can look wildly different.”

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After a challenging start to F1 2026, Piastri gave McLaren a much-needed boost at Suzuka with that P2 in his first grand prix start of the year.

Having collected three world titles over the last two seasons, McLaren is out to re-claim its position at the top of the sport.

“I think we’ve got optimism that we can improve in the future,” said Piastri. “I think we’ve got the proof that we’ve done that in the past.

“It’s obviously going to take time, but I think we’re all confident that we can achieve that. We all have that taste of success, now we want to get back to it.”

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