Despite a difficult start to the season, Oscar Piastri remains convinced that McLaren is capable of reproducing the spectacular comebacks that have made its reputation in recent years.
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Oscar Piastri refuses to give in to pessimism. Although McLaren had a 2026 season start far from its reigning champion standards, the Australian driver is convinced that his team has all the cards to reverse the trend in the coming months.
The Hungarian Grand Prix actually offered a first encouraging sign. Thanks to a significant package of upgrades, Lando Norris secured McLaren’s first victory this season. Even though Piastri could not benefit from these improvements after his retirement, he believes this performance confirms that the team is on the right track.
McLaren does not deceive itself
However, the Australian driver acknowledges that McLaren still lags behind the best cars on the grid.
“We know exactly where we stand. We have no illusions: we still lack performance compared to our rivals, and we absolutely want to close this gap.”
Piastri assures, however, that the engineers in Woking have already identified several development paths.
“We have good ideas to achieve this. The whole team is eager to regain the level we had and to taste success again.”
Past experiences give confidence
The Australian mainly relies on McLaren’s recent history to justify his optimism. He recalls that in 2023, the team was even more in difficulty before achieving a spectacular comeback thanks to a series of technical upgrades.
This progress allowed McLaren to regularly return to the podiums, before reaching a new level in 2024 with its first victories. In 2025, the MCL39 even became the benchmark on the grid, giving Lando Norris the world title.
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For Piastri, this ability to turn a season around midway is now one of his team’s greatest strengths.
“Previous seasons give me a lot of confidence. In 2023, we were in an even more complicated situation than today and we managed to come back to fight at the front.”
A still strong collaboration with Norris
Despite their duel for the championship last season, Piastri assures that his relationship with Lando Norris has not changed. The two drivers continue to work in the same direction to help McLaren progress.
“Our way of collaborating has remained the same. We communicate a lot with the team and we all pursue the same goal: to make the car faster.”
According to him, this cooperation remains essential to allow McLaren to reduce the gap that still separates it from Mercedes and Ferrari in the championship.
“We’ve done it before, we can do it again”
Although the technical context is different with the new 2026 cars, Piastri believes McLaren has already demonstrated several times its ability to react when it finds itself in difficulty.
“I’ve already seen this team achieve this kind of comeback more than once. It’s a real strength. The cars are different and our way of progressing may be too, but we have already shown that we can overcome this hurdle. I am convinced that we can do it again.”
A clear message sent to Mercedes and Ferrari: despite its current lag, McLaren is far from having given up playing leading roles during this second half of the season.
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