Piastri sees no miracle fix for McLaren’s problems this season

Ahead of the United States Grand Prix, Oscar Piastri delivered a troubling assessment of McLaren: with six races still to come, he doubts the team will find a solution to its problems before the season ends. The reigning constructors’ champion is third on 339 points, only seven ahead of Red Bull.

Piastri described a car with sharply contrasting performances. “Either you’re quite a way off or you’re really fast. There’s not really an in-between,” he said. Asked about the major swings in performance, he joked: “If I knew, I’d be a much happier person.”

The driver believes progress is being made, but says the car still does not behave as he would like. He pointed to differences in the cars and tyres, which are not expected to change in the short term, and said he is working to understand how to bring the car closer to his expectations. His assessment of the immediate scope for improvement was blunt: “I think in the short term, it’s probably as good as it’s going to get.” He also does not expect “any magic answers this year”.

That inconsistency underpins his diagnosis: Piastri described McLaren’s performance as “all or nothing”. He also acknowledged that Lando Norris has sometimes extracted more from the car than it appeared capable of delivering. “Some of the laps that Lando’s done in qualifying to put the car on pole have been better than what the car deserves,” he said. Norris, for his part, has described the car as “mentally exhausting” to drive. Andrea Stella has also agreed that the MCL40’s underlying problems will not be resolved before the 2027 car.

McLaren is nonetheless preparing modest updates for the United States event. Chief designer Rob Marshall said they would target, among other things, braking reliability and performance issues, alongside some floor changes to test. He also noted how difficult it is to judge the leading teams’ relative pace over the final races, with upgrades and circuit characteristics among the factors.

Piastri’s position in the championship adds to the stakes: he is seventh on 138 points and has yet to win a Grand Prix this season. McLaren, meanwhile, must protect its narrow advantage over Red Bull. Ahead of the event, Norris admitted he needs to make “better decisions”. After colliding with Piastri during the Marina Bay sprint, costing eight points and ending with Piastri retiring, Norris apologised. He said he takes responsibility for his mistakes and wants to learn, improve and represent the team better. Andrea Stella also said McLaren would hold further talks at its headquarters; those talks are understood to have taken place last week. For Austin, Norris believes the team is getting stronger again and that the circuit may suit its car better.