McLaren’s Oscar Piastri feels that the first half of his 2026 F1 season has been “up and down”.
Piastri finished third in 2025 with seven Grand Prix victories and one sprint win but this season has proven difficult due to new regulations, which has left the Australian driver sat seventh in the standings with just two podiums to his name.
“Definitely up and down,” said Piastri in an interview with mclaren.com ahead of the two-week F1 summer shutdown as he reflected on the first half of the season, in which he put their downturn in results down to performance issues.
“I think our kind of general level of performance has not been quite where we want it to be, obviously. We’ve come close to some victories and had a few podiums, which has been good, but we obviously set the bar pretty high last year. We’ve also had a fair share of issues, whether it be difficult races or reliability issues. So definitely up and down.”
Piastri nevertheless finished second in Japan and third in Miami which he felt were “good weekends,” alongside a fourth-placed finish in Austria after a difficult weekend in Barcelona, Spain.
“The result was reasonable, with the P4, but also in terms of the turnaround from Barcelona and just how I felt the weekend went. Barcelona was definitely one of the more difficult weekends of the year, and I had to learn a lot from that one and improve quite a lot, and I feel like Austria was really good: to bounce back and put some of that learning into place.
“I think the good results have been one thing, but I feel like I’ve also learned a lot about how I can improve myself as a driver, even if the results don’t always show it.”
Despite having no wins after 11 rounds compared to six wins at the same stage in 2025, Piastri feels that the stakes aren’t high despite his attempts to deliver results.
“The stakes aren’t quite as high at the moment as what they were, especially compared to last year,” explained Piastri.
“Obviously you’re still trying to do your absolute best and get the best result you can, but there’s a little bit less pressure, which means you’re able to try new things and experiment a little bit more, and see how you can improve.”
This season has seen new technical regulations introduced which Piastri feels “is just so different in many ways,” due to the radical nature of the changes compared to the last set of changes.
“I think this rule set is just so different in so many ways,” noted Piastri. “During the previous regulation changes, the cars themselves changed quite a bit, in terms of how much downforce they have or how they generate the downforce.
“But this regulation change has been like a completely fundamental change to how you drive a race car, in some ways. It’s been a huge reset for us, for me as well. I’ve had to tackle things in different ways and change the way I go about some things.”
Piastri however acknowledged that the regulations are challenging himself and McLaren to find new solutions to maximise performance on and off the track.
“We’re having to find so many new things and new ways of extracting performance out of the car and ourselves,” said Piastri on the lack of natural rhythm in the cars.
“It’s quite easy to just settle into your normal rhythm and do the things you’ve always done, but that doesn’t always work in these cars – I think Barcelona was definitely an example of that. In Austria I felt like I really had to stretch myself a bit more and try some new things, and just go about driving in a slightly different way.
“Every car is going to need slightly different things on how to go fast, and I feel like in the last few races before the break, I’ve definitely discovered more and more about how the car needs to be driven, how it works, how to go quickly in it, which is not always the most obvious or natural thing.”
Piastri also acknowledged that the team “have made a lot of progress” since the opening rounds which saw him record two DNS (Did Not Start) due to reliability issues,
“Whether that be us as drivers getting used to them, or through the work that has been done across drivers, teams, the FIA and F1 to tweak and improve them as we’ve gone through the year.
“However, looking back at the halfway point, we still have work to do. While we can’t just make the regulations and the racing exactly how we want it as drivers – as that may make it quite boring for everyone else – there are still tweaks we can make to improve from where we are now.
“I am looking forward to seeing what we can do with the second part of the season and into next year.”
McLaren have brought upgrades to each of the last four rounds which Piastri believes has given him “confidence,” which he can take into the second half of the season.
“When you look at the previous experience of what we’ve been able to achieve as a team, and how we’ve been able to make progress through the year, it’s good. In 2023, we were in a much worse position than where we are now, and we were able to really jump up the order to fight for podiums.
“The way that Lando and I worked together during that period to try and focus on making the car quick, so that we could then fight for the results that we wanted, hasn’t changed. It’s still strong, with productive conversations together with the team – we are all pushing toward the same goal.
“I feel like for me I’ve already seen it play out more than once. I think that’s a real strength of the team. Yes, things are different, the cars are different, maybe the way we will make that step will look different. But we’ve made that step before, and I’m confident we can do it again.”
McLaren currently lie third in the constructors’ standings with a 43-point advantage over fourth-placed Red Bull, but Piastri is “very conscious and aware” of where the team are in terms of performance.
“We’re under no illusions that we’re lacking some performance, and we really want to chase it. We’ve got good ideas on how we can do it. And I think everybody’s hungry to get back to where we have been and taste that success again.”
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