Piastri’s blunt ‘no magic’ verdict as he accepts season-long limitations

Oscar Piastri says there will be no “magic answers” this season as he is still uncomfortable in McLaren’s MCL40.

Reigning world champion McLaren is third in the Constructors’ Championship with 339 points, 239 points behind championship leader Mercedes.

Oscar Piastri explains McLaren’s deficit to Mercedes in F1 2026

McLaren enters the final stint of this year’s campaign with just two Grand Prix victories on the board, courtesy of Lando Norris in Hungary and the Netherlands.

Norris won both Grands Prix but finds himself on the cusp of being dethroned as F1’s world champion, trailing Kimi Antonelli by 139 points. To remain in the fight, he must leave this weekend’s United States Grand Prix no more than 125 points behind the Mercedes driver.

As for Piastri, he’s already 202 points behind Antonelli, having started the campaign on the back foot after recording back-to-back DNSs in Australia and Japan.

Although he recovered to finish on the podium in China and Miami, those were his last champagne celebrations.

McLaren has struggled with an MCL40 that is difficult to drive, forcing Piastri and Norris to adapt their driving styles.

Piastri concedes he is as comfortable with the MCL40 as he is likely to be this season.

“I think in the short term, it’s probably as good as it’s going to get,” the Australian driver told PlanetF1.com and other media in Singapore.

“But naturally, when you start giving yourself evidence of being able to drive a bit differently and in ways that aren’t that natural, they slowly become more natural.

“So I think Malaysia was another good step forward in terms of understanding what I need to do and not having to work quite so hard to get there and getting there a little bit more intuitively and without as much effort, which is ultimately the place I want to get to in this part of the year.

“But, yeah, to fundamentally bring the car a bit closer to where I would like it to be, I don’t think we’re going to have any magic answers this year.

“The cars themselves are very different. The tyres are quite different as well, so that’s not going to change anytime soon.

“But I definitely feel like the last two weekends, on a personal level, I’ve been performing much better.

“So I feel like on a personal level, I’m definitely making progress. But it’s still not as comfortable as I would like.”

Lando Norris vs Oscar Piastri: McLaren F1 2026 scores

F1 2026: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between teammates

F1 2026: Head-to-head race statistics between teammates

Piastri, though, was quick to downplay the suggestion that the Pirelli tyres are having the biggest effect on performance.

But when it comes to explaining this season’s swings in performance, he cannot say for certain what is behind them.

“If I knew, I’d be a much happier person,” he quipped.

“I think in Baku it wasn’t a huge surprise to see Mercedes so far ahead. You know, they’ve been very quick everywhere. I think their straight-line speed has always been very strong, and I think the confidence they have on the way into corners is generally something we envy.

“I think, putting it bluntly, some of the laps that Lando’s done in qualifying to put the car on pole have been better than what the car deserves.

“But I think definitely for us, and I can’t speak for others, but definitely, if you can kind of break that barrier of what holds you back, you find a lot of lap time, and you know that’s kind of the thing.

“Either you’re quite a way off or you’re really fast. There’s not really an in-between. That’s been a bit of a struggle this year.

“So I don’t think it’s necessarily down to the tyres. I think for us, there’s definitely a few things in how we need to drive the car that are maybe compounding that. But, yeah, even last year, we were having stints or weekends where our pace was unbelievable and we didn’t really know why, and weekends where we struggled more and we didn’t really know why.

“So there’s always unknowns, but no, I don’t think it’s as simple as just the tyres being very sensitive.”

McLaren will continue to update the MCL40 in the final races of the championship.

However, team principal Andrea Stella has stated that the Woking team’s late-season upgrades will focus on “fundamental concepts” that are likely to form the foundation of its 2027 F1 car.

“We do plan to deliver some upgrades. We hope that they will be able to fill this gap that we have to the best cars and put McLaren in condition to fight for podiums on merit,” Stella said.

“And then whether we can fight for the victory, this I think we will have to see probably in the last three races, because the upgrades will be delivered in phases.

“It’s important for us that we deliver upgrades because we are in a close fight for a championship position. But we also want to prove some of the fundamental concepts that will carry into next year’s car.”

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

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