Oscar Piastri believes McLaren is beginning to understand how to unlock the MCL40 after its breakthrough performance at the Hungarian Grand Prix. Following a difficult opening half of the 2026 Formula 1 season, the Australian is increasingly confident that the team has found the right development direction and can return to fighting regularly for victories.
The summer break has arrived at a significant moment for McLaren. Its podium result at the Hungaroring restored confidence within a team that appears to have turned a corner after a complicated start to the campaign. Andrea Stella made that point after the Hungarian weekend, explaining that the car remains some distance from its full potential but had finally taken an important step forward with the upgrades introduced in Budapest.
Oscar Piastri shares that optimism. While reviewing the opening half of the championship, the McLaren driver acknowledged the limitations of the MCL40 and the difficulties that contributed to the team’s challenging start to the 2026 season, but he also expressed confidence about what could follow after the break.
“It has definitely been a first half of the championship with plenty of ups and downs,” Oscar Piastri explained. “Our overall level of performance has not been where we wanted it to be. There have been some positive results, but after what we achieved last year, we had set the bar very high. We have also had difficult races and reliability problems, so the assessment is inevitably mixed.”
Oscar Piastri is learning how the McLaren MCL40 wants to be driven
While Lando Norris has appeared increasingly comfortable with the MCL40 during the most recent race weekends, Oscar Piastri admitted that his own adaptation process has been more complicated. According to the Australian, the 2026 technical regulations required a much deeper change in mentality than previous Formula 1 rules revolutions.
“These regulations are completely different in so many ways,” Oscar Piastri said. “In the past, what changed was the way the cars generated aerodynamic downforce, but this time the actual way of driving a Formula 1 car has changed. It has been a huge reset for me as well. I have had to approach things differently and change the way I work.”
Those comments also reflect what has become increasingly clear inside McLaren over recent weeks. The Woking team has not simply needed to recover performance through technical development. Its drivers and engineers have also had to learn how to understand a car that behaves very differently from the world championship-winning machine of the previous season.
Oscar Piastri identified Japan and Miami as two of the most significant weekends of the campaign in terms of results, but he believes Austria represented the most important moment in his personal development.
“Barcelona was one of the most difficult weekends of the year,” the Australian continued. “I had to learn a great deal and make a lot of improvements. In Austria, however, I managed to put those lessons into practice. I had to step outside my comfort zone, try new solutions and drive differently.
“During the final few Grands Prix before the break, I began to understand more and more how this car wants to be driven. It is not always intuitive, but I think I have made important progress.”
McLaren’s Hungary upgrades provide fresh hope
Oscar Piastri’s assessment is consistent with what was visible on track. Following the difficult Spanish Grand Prix weekend, McLaren began an extended development programme that culminated in the Budapest package and the floor changes that helped unlock the MCL40 in Hungary.
The package is expected to be completed during the next phase of the season, with additional updates already planned for Zandvoort and Baku. The Dutch Grand Prix will therefore provide McLaren with an early opportunity to establish whether its Hungarian progress can be reproduced at a circuit with very different characteristics. The full 2026 Dutch Grand Prix schedule covers the first Formula 1 weekend after the summer break.
The most significant element of Oscar Piastri’s comments, however, was his confidence in McLaren’s ability to reverse its fortunes once again. The Australian pointed to the team’s dramatic recovery in 2023, when McLaren progressed from the lower half of the field to regular podium contention after delivering one of the most effective in-season development programmes of recent years.
Oscar Piastri believes McLaren can repeat its 2023 recovery
“We are perfectly aware of the position we are in,” Oscar Piastri said. “We know we are missing performance and we want to recover it. We have clear ideas about how to do that, and everyone is hungry to return to where we were.
“The previous seasons give me confidence. In 2023, we were in a much worse situation than we are now, and we managed to climb back until we were fighting for podiums. The way Lando Norris, the entire team and I work together has not changed. We have already made that kind of leap in the past, and I am convinced that we can do it again.”
Those comments reinforce the message delivered by Andrea Stella after the Hungarian Grand Prix. McLaren remains a considerable distance from the top of the Formula 1 championship standings, but the developments introduced on the MCL40 appear to have finally brought the car to life after it fell behind during the opening months of 2026.
McLaren’s title challenge remains extremely difficult, but its objective for the second half of the season is now clear: continue recovering performance and establish itself as a regular contender for Grand Prix victories. Lando Norris’s win in Budapest demonstrated the progress made by the team, although Oscar Piastri’s retirement prevented McLaren from converting its pace into an even stronger result. The complete 2026 Hungarian Grand Prix classification shows how the race unfolded.
Oscar Piastri is now focused on continuing his own adaptation to the new-generation Formula 1 cars while helping McLaren maximise the potential of its development programme.
“As far as I am concerned, I want to continue learning and improving,” Oscar Piastri concluded. “Everything I manage to understand today will help me when we are back in a position to fight at the front. I would like to return to competing for victories, as we did in Hungary.
“If we can do that consistently, then we can begin to think about the championship as well. First of all, however, we need to extract the maximum from the car and from ourselves at every race weekend.”
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