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Why Piastri feels McLaren is behind title challengers
Peter McGinley • March 5th, 2026 7:49 pm
Oscar Piastri arrives in Melbourne set to take on his fourth Formula 1 season off the back of a mixed 2025, where his McLaren team won a second consecutive World Championship while the Aussie ran a close second to teammate Lando Norris for the driver’s title.
2026 brings about the biggest change to F1’s technical regulations in a generation, with Mercedes and Ferrari strong in winter testing and a challenge to McLaren’s recent dominance seemingly on the cards.
When asked for his thoughts ahead of the first running of the new cars at Albert Park, the Melburnian acknowledged the challenge was on, but that things were changing rapidly as teams navigate the new rules.
“It’s a very different regulations set. I think it would be optimistic or very optimistic to say we're going to have the same form as we did here 12 months ago,” said Piastri.
“I think we’re somewhere towards the front, but from testing, it feels like Mercedes and Ferrari have got a little bit on us and Red Bull.
“Things are chopping and changing so quickly as everyone learns and then brings things to the car. So we’ll have to wait and see.
“Last year we were coming here with very, very high hopes that we could achieve something special, and this year, I think we can still have a good result, but to achieve the same kind of performance, we’ll have to find a bit more.”
While early to make a proper judgement based on testing form, Piastri was asked for his initial assessment on the performance of Mercedes and Ferrari, and where McLaren fit into the picture.
“There’s never much you can read into with times in testing, the only thing you can sort of get a read on is the race simulations that everyone does,” said the Aussie.
“They're still not perfect, but to do a race simulation, you need to fill the car up fully with fuel. I think some of the Ferrari race sims looked very, very strong.
“For Mercedes, they never really did many race sims in Bahrain – I think just the kind of form and some of the laps they’ve been able to put in. Barcelona was pretty impressive, and I think they set the bar pretty high coming in, having the car run pretty flawlessly doing so many laps. I think just the preparation from them seems to be strong.
“I don't think we're far behind, I don’t know if we’re far behind at all, but the feeling is we're in the mix, but not right at the pointy end, so if we can find a little bit more, then hopefully we can be right at the pointy end.”
The new 2026 rules bring about a significant change for all drivers on how they approach simply driving the car, while for the teams, the Aussie said the regulations bring the power unit into focus as the key differentiator of performance.
“What is difficult about these new regulations, is that a lot of the things we have to learn to do as drivers are not very intuitive. So it takes some getting used to and a lot of discipline I would say,” said Piastri.
“All the driving, car setup, everything is optimised around getting the most out of the power unit. There's always kind of been an element of that, but it's now the biggest element I would say, but you’ve got to do all the other basics right.
“What’s going to be unique for us and a challenge to learn this year, in the past you’ve gone track to track, it’s got different grip levels, different downforce levels, things like that, but the engine’s never really been a big factor.
“From track to track, the engine is probably going to be the biggest factor in how you set things up and how you get the best lap times. How you attack different tracks is going to look different, and the things we’re going to need to do will look pretty different, so getting on top of those things is going to be the biggest challenge.”
2026 marks 46 years since Alan Jones’ victory at the 1980 Australian Grand Prix – no Aussie has stood on the top step of the podium since.
The 24 year old said the question about his chances at Albert Park is the on everyone’s lips, and that he was looking to break the hoo doo when it comes to Aussies winning an F1 race on home soil.
“If I had a dollar for every time I got asked that, I’d be a few dollars richer,” laughed Piastri.
“It would be really special. Every driver wants to win their home race and that’s no different for me. Having it as a season opener has a larger element of the unknown there.
“I would love to win here if we’ve got the car to do it, and if we don’t have the car to do it, I’ll be trying my absolute best to but we can wait and see what kind of performance we’ve got.”
