Oscar Piastri heads into the 2026 F1 Chinese GP looking to complete his first racing lap(s) of the season following a sighting lap crash at his home race in Melbourne last weekend.
The large gap to Mercedes at the F1 Australian GP
In qualifying last Saturday, Oscar Piastri was almost 0.9s off the pole time set by George Russell. He had to settle for P5 on the grid. On race day, Lando Norris ended up 51s off the victory as he took 5th.
Asked in his print media session in China if the gap to Mercedes was a shock after studying things post-Melbourne, the 24-year-old outlined the factors that came into it. He highlighted the crazy nature to the opening 10 laps with Norris down the pack in 7th, before things calmed down.
With the team having taken a huge amount of learning from it, Oscar Piastri is confident they will be closer to the Brackley-based team at the 2026 F1 Chinese GP.
“Yes and no [on whether he was shocked].
“I think the race was chaos for the first 10 laps and a very different kind of racing to what we’ve ever had in F1 and I think a very different kind of traditional way of racing.
“And then, once everyone kind of settled down, it looked more similar to what we’ve seen previously.
“I think the gap to Mercedes, I think we still had a lot of things we wanted to try and work out in the race, not optimising things as much as we could have, which we probably should have. So I think it maybe or hopefully paints a slightly pessimistic picture.
“But we’re under no illusion that Mercedes are incredibly strong and we’ve got time to fight.
“So yeah, hopefully we can get closer. I don’t think we’ll be in the fight to beat them over a race distance, but I think we can get a lot closer than what we did in Melbourne.”
Piastri: Understanding the power unit the key to lap time gains ahead of 2026 F1 Chinese GP
In the last couple of years, most of the focus had been finding hundredths, or maybe even a tenth or two through car set-up to transform car balance during the weekend. Everything was perfectly tuned with the previous engines as all F1 teams understood that side of things and how to manage them.
This year under the new regulations has seen the significant shift to a 50/50 split between electrical and internal combustion for engine power.
The Australian driver explained how much time he feels McLaren can gain from understanding the Mercedes power unit better and maximising it over a lap. The works team had a significant advantage at Albert Park over the customer teams.
He also detailed how George Russell was considerably faster than Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli on the straights in qualifying. The Brit perfected optimisation far better last Saturday.
“Well, I think we’ve probably not even spoken about the car that much because we’re so focused on how to get the most out of the power unit.
“I think one of the things we learned was the kind of difference you can make by optimising the power unit is an order of magnitude bigger than anything you can do with the set-up of the car.
Advantage Russell
“Yes, it can help, but I think probably a large element of George’s competitiveness, even compared to Kimi in the qualifying laps, you look at the straight-line speed of the two Mercedes cars to each other, it’s very different.
“And I think there’s at least a few tenths, probably close to half a second, if you get that right or wrong, and in the car set-up there’s maybe a tenth or two, if you really turn things around.
“But I think it’s just understanding what you need from the car to get the most out of the power unit. That’s the biggest thing, but especially at the moment so much of our time and capacity is taken up by finding those big gains from the power unit that anything we do with the car, unless it’s undriveable, is kind of just the… We’ll deal with that later.”
A different type of challenge awaits at the 2026 F1 Chinese GP
Although there will be less super clipping and lift and coast thanks to more corners, heavy braking zones and slower speeds through most of the lap, Oscar Piastri explained the challenges that lie ahead this weekend.
As it is a Sprint weekend, the teams have only got one practice sessions to understand how to maximise their power units around here before two qualifying sessions and races take place.
“I mean, deployment is still going to be a big thing. I think it’s just… we have different problems with being harvest-rich, let’s say, and there’s going to be other things for us to manage. There probably won’t be much or any lift and coast and super clipping for anyone.
“But especially on the back straight, it’s incredibly long and you can empty the battery very quickly.
“And there’s other challenges with that, but I think we’ve learned a lot from Melbourne. I think the sensitivity to some of those things is less here, but it’s still going to be very, very challenging.
“So we’ll find out, but I think we can get closer for sure.”
