Oscar Piastri concluded the 2026 F1 Australian GP Qualifying with a P5 result. In contrast to McLaren’s dominance last season, the Formula 1 2026 season starts with Mercedes on top. On a positive note, he beat teammate Lando Norris. Throughout the weekend he has had an edge.
After the first Formula 1 qualifying of the year, Piastri shared his thoughts on the pecking order and the improvements needed for McLaren.
Piastri deems straight-line speed to be crucial after 2026 Australian GP Qualifying
Although it seemed the home hero could secure a place in the top three during the final moments of Q3, he had to settle for P5. Still, the Australian’s final lap put him 0.095 seconds ahead of teammate Lando Norris in sixth place. Despite a narrow gap among the rest of the top ten in Q3, the Mercedes F1 team was in front and dominated. George Russell’s lap to pole position put him nearly three tenths ahead of Kimi Antonelli and over eight tenths ahead of Oscar Piastri.
When asked in the written media pen if he was surprised by the gap to the Mercedes cars ahead, Piastri admitted he knew McLaren was behind after the final Free Practice session.
“Yes, I think after yesterday, it probably painted an overly optimistic picture for us, but we felt like we were in the mix, and after FP3, we definitely didn’t feel like we were in the mix. After FP3, by far the biggest thing was straight-line speed. I don’t know if it’s the same after Qualifying, but I think that’s clearly something we need to understand.”
While FP1 saw Piastri finish in P6, FP2 was better as he secured P1, two tenths ahead of Antonelli. Then came FP3, where Russell finished six tenths faster than Lewis Hamilton in second, and over a second ahead of Piastri in fourth. From that moment, the pre-season predictions that Mercedes had a massive advantage over the other teams appeared to be accurate.
Piastri considers the pecking order to be unsurprising
While the eyes have been on Mercedes, the Mercedes team themselves said Red Bull is the fastest ahead of the F1 Australian GP weekend. The Red Bull of Isack Hadjar did impress with a P3 finish in Qualifying, with Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson and rookie Arvid Linblad also reaching the top ten. As Max Verstappen had a surprise crash in Q1, the four-time World Champion did not make the cut. However, the McLarens of both Piastri and Norris finished behind both Hadjar and the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc. While McLaren has the Mercedes engine, it quickly became clear that they still lag a step behind.
Asked if it was a surprise to not qualify in front of the Red Bull, Piastri said:
“Not necessarily. Our thoughts on the picture have been that everyone was pretty close, and then Mercedes jumped ahead, and the rest was pretty close. For me, the biggest thing was we didn’t seem to gain very much, or I certainly didn’t seem to gain very much, through Qualifying. I don’t know if that was the car, driver. Certainly the way you have to try and go faster is complex. So I don’t know, maybe the way you naturally want to go fast, well clearly the way you naturally want to go fast doesn’t work, but maybe there needs to be more restraint or looked into.”
New F1 regulations proving to be a challenge
Although the season just began, the new Formula 1 regulations are already a hot topic. Piastri’s teammate Norris stated that F1 has gone from having the best cars in its history to the worst now at the 2026 Australian GP, as the new rules are ineffective. When asked to comment on whether he feels the sport has reached that point, the Aussie replied:
“I think everyone can see the state of things. It will probably improve a bit, but there’s clearly some fundamental things that won’t be very easy to fix and I don’t really know what we do about that.”
He was then asked whether the super clipping to full 350 kilowatts tested in Bahrain pre-season would be a potential solution.
“Well, I mean at the moment, if you lift you can harvest 350 kilowatts so a super clip at 350 is the same as a lift. The only difference is one of them you’re actually off the throttle and in control of it. The other one you’re at full throttle so yeah, I’m not sure it’s any more helpful.”
Piastri: 2026 F1 Australian GP weekend a “massive challenge” for the drivers
The Aussie was next asked if the way the weekend has played out so far is worse than they imagined.
“It’s the same as we imagined. It will be different, it’ll be better at different tracks. We’ll have different challenges at other tracks because the tracks are kind of in two categories at the moment being energy starved and energy rich. There’s a problem with either of those things, but I think when you’re energy starved like this it’s a lot more obvious to everyone watching. I don’t know what the Mercedes lap looks like, but we’re lifting and coasting three times a lap. We had two super clips through the lap and in some corners we’ve got effectively 450 horsepower less, so it’s a massive challenge to get your head around. It’s tough for everyone.”
Several drivers have noted that, under the new regulations, they need to keep looking at the steering wheel every couple of seconds. They admitted that looking at the dash would help them wrap their head around the track.
“We’re looking at the dash a lot and I’m sure everyone has seen how we have to start a qualifying lap now, which isn’t great. There’s just a lot of things you have to do to optimise what we’ve got basically. I think for me, the understanding of things is okay. I feel like I know more or less what I can do, what I can’t do, it’s just that in an ideal world, which would be doing the things we can and can’t do, probably not,” the Australian stated.
