Despite not having participated in the race, Oscar Piastri acknowledged that McLaren’s performance at the Australian GP may have conveyed a “slightly pessimistic” impression about the team’s prospects for the 2026 Formula 1 season. Despite this, the driver believes the team can reduce the gap to the leaders throughout the championship.
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The British team started the year without repeating the prominence of 2025. Lando Norris, the current champion, was lackluster throughout the race, while Piastri did not even participate in the race after suffering an accident on the way to the starting grid.
Asked if the result for Norris, who finished 50 seconds behind winner George Russell, was shocking, Piastri told the press: “Yes and no. The race was chaos in the first 10 laps and a very different type of contest from anything we’ve seen in F1. [It was] very different from your traditional racing style. After everyone settled down, the situation became more like what we saw previously.”
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The Australian explained that the team also used the race to conduct tests and better understand the car. “The gap to Mercedes… we still had many things we wanted to test and understand during the race, not optimizing everything we could, or probably should have. This might paint a slightly pessimistic picture, but we have no illusions that Mercedes is incredibly strong and we have time to find [answers].”
Piastri highlighted that extracting the maximum from the power unit is fundamental to improving pace and showed confidence in a reaction throughout the season. “Hopefully, we can get closer,” he said. “I don’t believe we will be in the fight to beat them over a race distance. But I think we can get much closer than we did in Melbourne,” he concluded.
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