Oscar Piastri clearly struggled in the 2026 F1 Miami GP Qualifying; he only managed to qualify P7. A disappointing result after a successful McLaren 1-2 Sprint Race finish earlier at the 305. In the print media pen, Piastri talked about his qualifying struggles and feelings of the upgraded MCL40.
Deployment issues made Q3 difficult for Piastri
Oscar Piastri said that he was “not 100% sure” why he couldn’t set a decent lap at the 2026 F1 Miami GP Qualifying. “We tried to change a few things with our deployment and it didn’t quite do what we hoped. We’ll try to undo that, basically,” the McLaren driver explained. “Q2 looked okay, and Q3 on both laps were pretty scruffy. But the second one is where I had a massive setback. I got a lift at turn 7, which is not really what you want for the first time in the weekend,” the Australian clarified.
“In Q3, it was just a messy session from a lot of different angles. And with these cars, especially on a track like this, where you’ve really got to put the car in the perfect place and drive it pretty much perfectly to get it to work. When you’re not in that rhythm, it makes life very tough.”
In his last run in Q1 of the 2026 F1 Miami GP Qualifying, Piastri went out on used tyres. His teammate did the same thing. In the end, he barely made it in.
“Obviously, I could see what time Lando had done. It did look pretty compared to that. But when I compared it to his lap at the same time, when both our power units were doing the same thing, then it looked a bit more respectable. It certainly wasn’t the smoothest.“
McLaren not fully maximised its potential during 2026 F1 Miami GP according to Piastri
Piastri had a different deployment strategy for the Sprint Qualifying. And it worked better than the strategy for Grand Prix Qualifying. What did they change that resulted in the major differences? “We tried a few tweaks, but… I mean, there’s a lot of rules. You change one thing, you run into a different kind of problem,” the Aussie tried to shed light into the situation.
“I don’t know what others’ deployments looked like, but I would probably imagine they moved a bit more towards us than anything else. We were pretty happy with ours. Our qualifying yesterday was certainly better than it was today. So it’s obviously a tricky balance, but I think that wasn’t our issue today,” the McLaren driver explained.
According to the Australian, every team but McLaren maximised their potential better than them. Piastri revealed that they were surprised by Mercedes’ performance during the 2026 F1 Miami GP Friday sessions and the Sprint. However, they expected to see Antonelli on pole with a gap.
“I think everyone else maximised what they had a lot more. For us, it was a big surprise to not see Mercedes be quick yesterday and this morning. And seeing Kimi on pole by that much is more what we expected. And I think even for Max and Charles, I think they probably just maximised a bit more of what they had, and that’s a bit more of the real picture.“
Upgrades are a step in the right direction for McLaren
“It’s definitely a step better,” said Piastri about the newly upgraded MCL40. In Suzuka, Piastri felt comfortable with the car already. How will the new upgrades translate to that compared to Japan? “This circuit is obviously completely different to Suzuka, both in layout, tarmac, especially temperature. I think what you need to do to get the most out of the car is very different here to Suzuka,” he said.
“I think it is better. It’s taken a little bit of getting used to, I would say, just to get the most out of it. But I think yesterday they were running pretty well, and today wasn’t the best of sessions from us as a team, but I think that’s a little bit more reality.”
Piastri predicts 2026 F1 Miami GP: “It’s going to be interesting one way or another”
Due to predicted heavy weather, the 2026 F1 Miami GP has been pushed forward three hours. That means more preparations for teams and drivers. Especially if there are still issues that need solving.
“It’s going to be interesting one way or another. We’re going to have to do our homework. We didn’t have the power unit really do what we expected today in the dry, so I really don’t want that to happen in the rain. So we’ll make sure we do our homework and be as prepared as we can, but it’s obviously going to be a voyage into the unknown for everybody. When it rains here, normally it’s pretty torrential, so it could be an interesting day,” argued Piastri.
Ferrari and Red Bull had some testing in the rain earlier this season, Piastri however hasn’t done a lap in the rain under the new regulations. “It’s going to be tough, but in terms of driving the car, it’s going to be not that different to what we’ve had before,” claimed Piastri.
“It’s just going to be what happens with the power unit, how you get power, where you get power is in a computer’s hands. So it’s just making sure that that does roughly what we expect. Obviously, the margin of error, when it’s wet, is significantly harder.”
Piastri mentioned that it is not surprising to see Ferrari and Mercedes being competitive. For him it was more of a surprise to see Verstappen up in the mix, as well. “I would say yes. I think it wasn’t a big surprise to see Mercedes and Ferraris, and especially Charles, who looked good this weekend, be competitive. To see Max up there was a bit of a surprise.
“It just goes to show at the moment that things are very random, depending on who gets it right and who gets it wrong. We were probably in the category of getting it wrong today, and when you get it wrong, it’s not the difference of a tenth or two, it’s sometimes half a second. I think definitely the others did have found some time from yesterday, and we probably had a bit of a tricky session,” concluded the Australian.
