McLaren’s Oscar Piastri had a frustrating Qualifying session at the 2026 F1 Hungarian GP but will be starting in P3 after Kimi Antonelli and Lewis Hamilton‘s post-session penalties.
The 25-year-old reflected on the challenging session and lamented the lack of pace and balance in his McLaren. Oscar Piastri also shared his perspective on the incident with Ferrari’s Hamilton towards the end of Q3.
Oscar Piastri on Lewis Hamilton impeding incident at the 2026 F1 Hungarian GP
The Australian driver only completed one flying lap during Q3, which placed him in P5. However, on his second attempt, he was blocked on track by Hamilton at turn 1, which ultimately ruined his final flying lap attempt, preventing him from improving his time.
Piastri shared his point of view on the incident and revealed that he did expect the Ferrari driver to give way.
“Yeah, I mean, I saw him from the start line and kind of watched him expecting him to get out of the way, and I watched him basically all the way up until I nearly hit him.”
While McLaren has the underlying pace, it has been a challenging weekend for Piastri
The incident was even more unfortunate for Piastri as his teammate Lando Norris was able to improve on his own second flying lap and clinched pole at the 2026 F1 Hungarian GP. The Briton’s performance proved that McLaren did have the underlying pace to challenge the top teams of the season so far.
However, Oscar Piastri admitted that it had been a difficult weekend thus far and that missing FP1 had a more significant impact than he anticipated. According to the Australian, the track and weather conditions were vastly different from Friday. This meant he spent the majority of Saturday adjusting to the conditions, which made aborting his second flying lap attempt “quite frustrating”.
Leonardo Fornaroli had also been in his car for FP1.
“Yes, definitely. I think, you know, even without that, it’s not been easy for sure this weekend for me. I think missing FP1 definitely had a bit more of an impact than I thought it would because the track conditions have been pretty different to what we’ve been used to.
“In saying that, you know, today the conditions have been quite a lot different to yesterday, but it’s just been difficult to catch up, and I felt like with every lap through qualifying I was slowly getting there and, you know, I felt like I needed that second lap in Q3 more than most weekends, and to not be able to do it was quite frustrating.”
McLaren’s upgrades are working as expected at the 2026 F1 Hungarian GP
Following the conclusion of FP2, Piastri’s main complaint was the severe lack of balance in his MCL40. The intense wind conditions were the main culprit for this challenge. Piastri reflected that there was an improvement on Saturday with the calmer wind.
As the Australian was running the older package to facilitate comparative tests on Friday, his McLaren was only fitted with the new aerodynamic upgrades package ahead of FP3.
While they did help with the balance issues from Friday, Piastri revealed that he was still adapting to them. Nonetheless, he is motivated by the performance improvement of his MCL40 and Norris’ performance thus far.
“Difficult, but I think compared to yesterday quite an improvement both with the wind and also with the upgrades. So, you know, we’re also trying to get used to that to an extent this morning. And it’s just not been a super smooth weekend from that side of things.
“Clearly, they’re pretty good. One car’s on pole. So no, I think they’ve done a good job clearly, and this was the kind of step we’ve needed. We’ll see if it’s going to be enough to help us everywhere, but no, definitely the car is good for sure.”
Piastri on McLaren’s development progress
The Australian driver acknowledged that heading into the summer break, McLaren’s performance has been inconsistent.
While the upgrades have been working as expected thus far, Piastri reflected that it would be important to evaluate if it was a genuine performance improvement due to the upgrades or if it was because the Hungaroring suited the MCL40’s natural strength. Nonetheless, he is optimistic about the upgrades, especially with McLaren’s strong development track record.
“I think so, yes. I mean, we’ve still been quite up and down even without that kind of stuff. So I think hopefully with these upgrades. You know, we’ll have to wait and see after the break whether, well, firstly what everyone else starts to bring, what we bring more, and see if it’s track specific or just a genuine improvement, you know. It should be good everywhere, and we’ve generally had a good run with upgrades working as we hope. And just giving us performance everywhere, so hopefully that continues.”
It has been a difficult 2026 F1 Hungarian GP weekend thus far for Oscar Piastri
When asked if McLaren had made a mistake running him on the older package to facilitate comparative tests on Friday. Especially with his significant performance deficit compared to pole sitter Norris, Piastri reflected: “Yes, it, you know, it wasnt ideal. We wouldn’t have chosen to do that if we didn’t have to.”
The nine-time Grand Prix winner noted that as the conditions on both days were vastly different, it would have been a challenging Saturday regardless. However, Piastri shared that it has been a significantly difficult 2026 F1 Hungarian GP weekend thus far.
“But at the same time, the track conditions and the wind conditions changed quite a bit today, so even without that change it was pretty different. But, yeah, definitely you want to be able to, you know, you don’t want to be changing big parts on the car like that if you don’t have to. So, yeah, it’s just not been a particularly smooth weekend with missing first practise and then getting used to it.”
Piastri also shared his insights on the track conditions at both Turn 1 and Turn 12. Ahead of the 2026 F1 Hungarian GP, both corners had been resurfaced. Despite this, many drivers, including Piastri, had complained about the asphalt breaking up on Friday.
The Australian driver shared that while Turn 1 will be difficult due to the uneven track surface, he believes that there would not be any further disintegration of the track over the remainder of the weekend.
“I think the bump at Turn 1 will be a bit tricky, yes, but I don’t think the track’s been opening up more through the weekend. It was already like that before we got here, so I don’t expect it to deteriorate more, but yeah, definitely it’s thrown a few curveballs.”
