Piastri sees no McLaren fix before season's end as team fights off Red Bull for third

Piastri: 'as good as it's going to get' in the short term

Oscar Piastri has delivered a sobering assessment of McLaren's 2026 campaign, conceding the team is unlikely to fix the problems undermining its car before the season ends. "I think in the short term, it's probably as good as it's going to get," the Australian said ahead of this weekend's United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, in comments reported by Motorsport.com on 21 October and carried by Streamline. "I don't think we're going to have any magic answers this year." ³

Piastri traced the difficulty to the scale of change under the 2026 regulations, saying the cars and tyres are very different and that several drivers across the grid are still working to fully understand them. "I'm definitely making progress, [but] it's still not as comfortable as I would like," he said. The gains he has made, he indicated, have come from his own adaptation rather than from the team's development, pointing to Malaysia as "another good step forward in terms of understanding what I need to do to fundamentally bring the car a bit closer to where I would like it to be," as reported by Streamline citing Motorsport.com. ³

His sharpest observation concerned the car's operating window. "Either you're quite a way off or you're really fast. There's not really an in-between," Piastri said, describing a car that rewards precise setup and punishes anything slightly outside its window with a disproportionate loss of lap time. Asked what lay behind the swings, he could only joke: "If I knew, I'd be a much happier person." ³

Teammate Lando Norris, the reigning world champion, has described the MCL40 as "mentally exhausting" to drive, according to Streamline's report. Piastri, for his part, credited Norris with extracting more than the machinery deserves, saying "some of the laps that Lando's done in qualifying to put the car on pole have been better than what the car deserves." ³

Stella confirms the real fix arrives in 2027

Team principal Andrea Stella has aligned with his driver's outlook. According to Fox Sports' Michael Lamonato, Stella said he does not expect what is coming to the car this year to improve its difficult handling characteristic. "I think we need something more fundamental than simply adding some downforce to the car like is happening in the coming races without fundamentally changing some further aspect, which we are addressing longer term — at the earliest, I would say, with the MCL41 for 2027," Stella said. ²

Stella added that some of the upgrades coming later this year are effectively trial parts feeding into the 2027 program. "It's important for us that we deliver upgrades [this year] because we are in a close fight for championship position, but we also want to prove some of the fundamental concepts that will carry into the next year's car," he said, noting that aerodynamic development at this maturity level "may go right, it may go wrong" and that the team wanted to track-test fundamentals before next year. He framed the urgency against Red Bull being "pretty much on par with us in terms of points" and ahead in competitiveness, and said the team "wanted to set a quest to Ferrari in the championship." ²

The standings: seventh on 138 points, third in the constructors' fight

Piastri sits seventh in the drivers' championship on 138 points without a grand prix win in 2026, according to Sky Sports' standings last updated 21 October. Kimi Antonelli leads for Mercedes on 340 points from teammate George Russell on 238, with Lewis Hamilton on 229 and Max Verstappen on 221. Lando Norris, the reigning world champion, is sixth on 201 points — 63 clear of Piastri, whose line-up partner has been McLaren's stronger performer on every key metric this season. ⁸⁴

An AFP championship standings item from Austin dated 22 October lists Piastri seventh on 138 points, matching the Sky Sports, Fox Sports and Bleacher Report tables that all place him seventh on 138 points heading into the United States Grand Prix. ¹⁴⁶⁸

The constructors' picture is tighter. McLaren is third on 339 points, just seven ahead of Red Bull on 332, with Mercedes leading on 578 and Ferrari second on 444, per Sky Sports' standings last updated 21 October. A single race result — a win is worth 25 points — could swing that third-place fight. ⁸

The United States Grand Prix is round 18 of the 2026 calendar, at the Circuit of the Americas from 23-25 October, according to the Independent's calendar listing. Five rounds then remain after Austin: Mexico City (30 October-1 November), Interlagos (6-8 November), Las Vegas (19-21 November), Qatar (27-29 November) and Abu Dhabi (4-6 December), giving six races in total counting the US round — the figure Streamline cites for McLaren's remaining scoring opportunities. The Independent's standings, published after the Singapore GP, match the Sky Sports totals, confirming the seven-point McLaren-Red Bull margin carried into the US round. ⁵⁷³

Norris leads the intra-team battle on every metric

Fox Sports' analysis sets out how decisively the internal McLaren battle has gone Norris's way in 2026. The head-to-head record shows Norris leading qualifying 11-6 and races 7-4, with a qualifying differential of 1.0 places and a time differential of 0.055 seconds in his favour. The points tally of 201 to 138 — a 60-40 per cent split — means the reigning world champion has established himself as the team leader this season. ²

The most contentious recent chapter came at the Singapore Grand Prix, where Norris's last-lap lunge on Piastri for fourth place in the sprint sent the Australian out of the race. Fox Sports reports that the move, in wet conditions with only a narrow dry line, would have been worth one point to Norris and none to the team — but the outcome cost McLaren eight points, with Piastri crashing out and Norris limping home eighth. Norris remains mathematically alive in the drivers' championship, making the high-stakes, low-return move, in Fox Sports' analysis, difficult to justify. ²

Stella did not hide his displeasure. "What was had [in the sprint] I classified as unacceptable," he said after the race, adding that conversations about leading the team together and prioritising team interests over any "singular, individual interest" were not concluded. Fox Sports reports that Norris later issued profuse apologies following behind-the-scenes talks with Stella and McLaren CEO Zak Brown, and said in the team's pre-Austin press release: "I take responsibility for my mistakes, and I learn from them. This team is my motivation every weekend, and my aim is to repay the hard work everyone puts in by improving, making better decisions, and representing the team in the best possible way." ²

There are, however, recent signs of Piastri closing the gap. Fox Sports reports that his one-lap deficit to Norris has come down in the last five races, a stretch in which he outpaced Norris in qualifying twice, and that at two of the previous three grands prix he has been the better performer. Fox Sports frames the challenge of matching his driving style to the 2026 regulations and the McLaren as slowly being met. ²

Why the season's arithmetic leaves so little room

The timing compounds McLaren's difficulty. If, as Stella confirmed, the fundamental fix arrives only with the 2027 car, none of the remaining rounds offers a mechanical solution; whatever the team scores, it scores with the current package. Streamline's analysis notes the constructors' margin over Red Bull is smaller than the swing a single race result can produce, making consistency the only realistic path through the run-in. ³

Streamline's analysis frames what to watch next: if McLaren's scoring holds off Red Bull for six more rounds, Piastri's admission will read as prudent expectation-setting from a team playing a long game; if the lead goes, his assessment will have been borne out within weeks of making it. ³

For Piastri personally, the frame is different. He is not defending a lead but searching for form, and his own words suggest the remainder of his season is about learning — banking the understanding he says he gained in Malaysia before the rules reset in 2027. McLaren CEO Zak Brown, quoted by Fox Sports, said he is "liking everything I see out of Oscar" and that the Australian is "feeling much more confident, on top of things", while Stella attributed Piastri's earlier competitiveness loss to a technical matter of adapting to a car requiring far greater driving intensity than last year's. ²³