EXCLUSIVE: Piastri on taming the MCL40, redefining success and why a tough 2026 could make him stronger

By his own admission, 2026 has been tough for Oscar Piastri. The season began with a DNS in front of his home crowd in Australia, was swiftly followed by another in China, and has brought with it significant challenges – particularly the task of getting to grips with McLaren’s MCL40.

While he currently sits a place behind team mate Lando Norris in the Drivers’ Championship, he is 94 points away from the Briton in seventh. Norris also has three wins this year, the most recent of which came last weekend in Sao Paulo, while Piastri has only been on the podium twice – and those were in rounds three and four of the campaign.

It’s a significant contrast to 2025 when the 25-year-old was embroiled in an intense three-way fight for the title that went all the way to the last race of the season, before Norris eventually triumphed and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen settled for second.

But the results do not tell the whole story of Piastri’s 2026 so far. While the change of regulations brought about an obvious reset in the pecking order – with Mercedes emerging as the class of the field to displace McLaren, who had won the last two Constructors’ Championships – there has also been a significant technical challenge for the Australian to overcome. It’s an exercise that has been far from straight forward.

‘It’s been tougher than I expected’

“It's been tough, definitely been tough,” Piastri admits to me as we catch up ahead of the United States Grand Prix in Austin. At this point he’s just come off a P5 result in Singapore and it looks like things are coming together again after a difficult first half of the year.

At the heart of his difficulties have been his struggles to adapt his natural driving style to the demands of McLaren’s MCL40 car. As mentioned by Team Principal Andrea Stella, Piastri has been unable to drive through “pure instinct” in certain conditions.

“As a team, we've not been as competitive as we would have wanted obviously and, I think for me, personally it's been tougher than I expected with trying to get to grips with the car,” the Australian continues.

“Obviously as a sport it's been a very demanding year in terms of getting used to the power units as well. It's definitely thrown in a lot of challenges, and I feel like I've had to change a lot of things in how I drive, or certainly tweak things.

“But I feel I'm making some progress now in the second half of this year, so yeah, just trying to continue that.”

McLaren’s drivers have both said at various points that the MCL40 is a difficult beast to tame, and it takes a lot to extract its full potential. But, for Piastri, that’s been coupled with having to retrain the driving instincts that have come so naturally to him over the last few years.

It’s no easy feat and, as any athlete will testify, when you’re having to think that intensely about the adjustments you need to make then it becomes increasingly hard to find your optimum performance level.

“The biggest thing has probably been the general driving style you have, or that you need, is quite different for this year's car compared to previous years,” the 25-year-old explains.

“Even in previous years there's been an element of adaptation and learning for that – sure – but I think [it’s been a] combination of a few different things this year.

“Obviously, the cars are smaller, the tyres are quite different. It means you really have to drive the car on the edge all of the time – certainly our car, I don't know what others think of it.

“That's been quite different. You're always driving on the edge to an extent, but this year it's really always taking you beyond the edge of trying to salvage things.

“So, it's felt quite different to previous [cars] and even a lot of the previous cars I've driven in general. That's been quite an adaptation process and learning to trust the car and retrain what feels like the limit is never an easy thing to try and adapt. But hopefully I’m making progress.”

Without doubt Piastri is making that progress he is hoping for. Over the Singapore Grand Prix weekend, McLaren CEO Zak Brown said as much as he acknowledged the Australian was back to the driver he knew.

“He’s feeling more confident and on top of things,” Brown explained in the Team Principals’ Press Conference. “I like where both our drivers are now.”

While Piastri would perhaps rather have had another season fighting for titles, as he was in 2025, he does acknowledge that, in the long term, it might be a positive for him to have gone through the technical challenges that have been thrown at him this year.

“I think so,” he responds when I propose that line of thought. “You know, even some of the challenges from last year, they weren't completely dissimilar to what I've got this year, and I feel like I've definitely made a lot of progress on that in general.

“These last few races are definitely going to be another challenge in terms of testing where I'm at, in terms of developing those skills. Having that challenge has been tough, obviously, but getting through it, and then continuing to work on it, [is] ultimately going to be rewarding and [will] hopefully set me up for whatever car we get [in future].”

‘It's been good to see everybody pulling together’

Despite the way 2026 has panned out, with McLaren playing catch up following their back-to-back championship-winning years, the atmosphere within the squad is still positive.

Of course, part of the reason they began this season on the back foot was because last year’s drivers’ title went right down to the wire in the Abu Dhabi finale – Red Bull, after all, found themselves in the exact same position.

But as the year has gone on the team have found gains through development, one of their key strengths over the last few seasons, and Piastri insists they are as determined as ever to return to the top.

“It's been good to see everybody pulling together and this year has definitely been more challenging for sure,” says Piastri as I ask about the atmosphere within the squad. “I think everyone is still very determined to get back to where we know we can be.

“The competition [to Mercedes] is definitely going to step up in terms of, not just the competitiveness they have, but the continued development and stuff like that. They're raising the bar as well.

“I feel like we've set the bar pretty high in the last couple of years and that's the beauty of F1 – everyone is always pushing the boundaries further and further.

“I think we're on our way back there, development and upgrades have always been a strong point for us, and hopefully we can just keep pushing.”

There’s also plenty to be said about a team growing stronger in times of adversity, which Piastri is also seeing first hand. McLaren have, after all, roared back from difficult situations before.

“Definitely between myself, and the pretty close and intimate engineering team around me, we've learned a lot about each other and how we get the most out of ourselves [as well as] how we get more out of ourselves,” he explains. “So that's been a good process to go through for sure.”

‘I've always tried to remove results from what success looks like’

As is so often said in the intense world of F1, you live and die by the stopwatch. So, given Piastri and McLaren have not been able to deliver the results they both might have wanted, what has brought the Australian joy this year?

“I think trying to make progress,” he answers. “I've always tried to remove results from what success looks like.

“Of course, results do help. But especially when you're not in a position to win races, or whether it be because of the car or the kind of struggles I've had this year, sometimes a win and a successful weekend looks like improvement rather than perfection, is what I would say.

“That's brought me joy, for sure. There's been some very strong weekends this year that I've been really happy with. [I’m] just trying to work through those things.”

And what also comes as an additional challenge for drivers, when things aren’t going as well as hoped, is wrapping up your self-worth and identity entirely in F1 and what you do on the track.

“I mean, it is definitely a challenge because we spend so much time working at races and stuff like that,” Piastri adds. “It's definitely a challenge to be able to switch off from that.

“But I think outside of the track, I still enjoy the same things I always have – being able to spend time with my girlfriend, being able to have a few hours, a few days to kind of decompress, watch TV, play my simulator, play video games, whatever it might be. They're the same things that bring me joy, so yeah, that side of things hasn't changed.”

Piastri has always been praised for that level-headed approach. It’s proved beneficial when fighting for titles, and it will absolutely be beneficial now as he seeks to turn around his fortunes.

Of course, what also helps is the strong sense of belief he has that McLaren will be back fighting for championships in the very near future.

“I certainly hope so,” he says. “I think it's been intriguing this year to see how things have ebbed and flowed.

“Everyone's kind of had their strong moments in terms of the top four teams. So yeah, we're pushing very hard to get back to that of course. Like I said, the teams around us have definitely raised the bar, but I know that we can raise it even higher.”

Whenever that time comes for McLaren, Piastri will have hoped he has raised his own bar just as high. And there’s every chance that the trials and tribulations of 2026 will have been crucial in helping him get there.