Oscar Piastri details McLaren 'manhandling' challenge as F1 woes continue

Oscar Piastri has described how he is having to "manhandle" his McLaren F1 car to extract performance in a difficult season. 

Piastri has not been on the podium since the Miami Grand Prix in May, 17 races ago, with an average finish of 7.1 from his 15 finishes since.

In contrast, team-mate Lando Norris has taken four pole positions and won three grands prix, including last time out in Sao Paulo, since Piastri's last rostrum visit, as he struggles to adapt to the demands of the new cars.

An ultra-smooth and precise driver, Piastri has taken time to adapt to the lighter, smaller cars of 2026, which twitch more through the corners, requiring constant micro-corrections on the steering wheel as opposed to the uber-high downforce ground-effect cars of 2025, where he led the world championship for 15 races and looked like the champion-elect until his late stumble.

Both Piastri and Norris have been vocal about the shortcomings in McLaren's MCL40 package and its difficulty to drive, as Piastri explained the ongoing battle he is facing with his machine. 

"I think the best way to describe it is, and I'm not sure this is politically correct anymore, but you've got to manhandle the car a bit," Piastri explained to media, including RacingNews365. 

"It is not a car that naturally does all the things you want, and it is rare that a car does everything you want, but it seems this year's car in particular, you really have to drive at 100%, or what feels like about 110%, to be quick firstly, but also to get the car to do more of what you want.

"When you're able to put it on that limit, it has a lot of potential; it can be a race-winning car if you manage to sort it out, but just finding that limit is incredibly tough."

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Listening to the car

Further explaining the situation, Piastri described how he was able to "listen" more to what the 2025 machine was telling him as opposed to its successor. 

"It is a car that, especially in comparison to last year's car, you could listen to what [the 2025 car] was telling you a lot more, and obviously that car had a lot of natural pace," he said. 

"But it felt like sometimes you could drive it a lot easier and be just as quick if you drove it at 110%.

"Whereas this car, as soon as you're not at 100%, you lose a lot of time very quickly."