Oscar Piastri offers 'thousands' warning ahead of 'voyage into the unknown'

Oscar Piastri believes the fact that "thousands of engineers" cannot say what will happen in the Canadian GP makes it a voyage "into the unknown."

The Montreal race is expected to be wet according to current forecasts, with only a few drivers and teams having experience of the 2026 cars in wet weather conditions, none of which have come in competition. 

Pirelli has advised teams to start on the full wet tyres owing to concerns about the low air temperatures making it tricky to generate tyre temperature on a cold track, with no high-speed corners to generate heat. 

It is not just the tyres which are a cause for concern, with many drivers and teams having no experience of running the 2026-spec power units in wet conditions.

It is a combination that McLaren's Piastri, due to start fourth behind George Russell, Kimi Antonelli and team-mate Lando Norris, adds to the uncertainty.

"I've not heard amazing things about the power units. I mean, they are tricky enough in the dry to be consistent, let alone in the rain, so both will be a big problem," Piastri told the media, including RacingNews365, about the tyre-power unit combination

"I think the power unit will just be a lap time loss; it could be quite big, but obviously getting the tyres into the window or not is the risk factor, which is significantly higher. 

"So we'll see what we get in terms of a wet race.

"We did a lot of preparation in Miami, trying to understand [running the power unit in wet conditions] and I think the conclusion was we don't know what's going to happen.

"And when you've got a few hundred, if not thousands, of the best engineers in the world that don't know what's going to happen, it's an interesting place to be in.

"So I'm sure it's the same up and down the grid, but there is definitely going to be a large element of the unknown."