Oscar Piastri has declared the Formula 1 title battle is “far from over”, but added McLaren needs to find performance quickly to put itself in the fight as the spotlight shines on driver safety ahead of extreme weather forecast for the Miami Grand Prix.

The Formula 1 campaign resumes for the first race of the North American swing following a five-week hiatus after the cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix due to the war in Iran.

In the absence of on-track action, there has been plenty of activity off it with teams using the break to work on upgrades in a bid to close the gap on pacesetters Mercedes, while the FIA announced “refinements” to its controversial 2026 rules, which will come into effect in Miami.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has promised a “completely new car” for the season resumption in Miami as the defending world champions strive to ignite their campaign.

Piastri claimed the team’s first podium for the year in Japan after a tough start to the season when he crashed out on the warm-up lap of his home grand prix, while both he and world champion teammate Lando Norris failed to start in China due to separate technical issues.

Three races into the season, McLaren sits third in the team’s standings behind pacesetters Mercedes, and Ferrari, while Norris and Piastri are fifth and sixth in the drivers’ standings.

Piastri did not expect the rule tweaks to have much impact on the competitive order, but was hopeful the team’s developments could help it close the gap to Mercedes and ignite a title charge.

“Clearly a lot of people are going to have upgrades and better cars, but from a rule change point of view, it’s really not going to change the order of things very much,” Piastri said ahead of Miami.

“In the grand scheme of things, they’re very small changes. But it’s going to be interesting to see what the development is like for everybody.

“Clearly Mercedes are very strong at the moment, so hopefully we can close the gap.

“The championship is far from over at this point, but we … well everyone, but us, McLaren, need to find performance pretty quickly to get ourselves in that fight.

“We know we’ve got things (upgrades) here this weekend and more things to come in the near future and hopefully it’ll be enough to at least put us in the fight.”

Mercedes have claimed victory in the opening three races of the season – George Russell in Melbourne and Italian young gun Kimi Antonelli in the past two races in China and Japan.

While Piastri hoped the upgrades would make McLaren more competitive, he questioned whether they would be enough to challenge the Silver Arrows in Miami this weekend.

“Hopefully we’ll be faster. Obviously, that’s the plan,” Piastri said.

“We’ll have to wait and see where exactly we come out. I think it’s a step in the right direction for us.

“It’s not going to be enough to challenge Mercedes this weekend, I don’t think, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.

“The motivation and the confidence in the team at the moment is high. I think we’re on a good trajectory again. Japan was nice to go into the break with a bit of confidence in showing our potential and hopefully we’ve just added to that now.”

Addressing the rule changes, aimed at enhancing qualifying and addressing concerns over closing speeds, for Miami, Piastri said they were a step in the right direction, but said the underlying issues with the new product could not be fixed without significant change.

“I think the collaboration’s been good and trying to make changes, I think they’re a step in the right direction,” Piastri said.

“How far they go to helping the problems, you’re never going to fix the problems without changing the hardware of the power units, but I think it’s a step in the right direction.

“How much it helps, we’ll have to wait and see. But certainly, some of the tweaks are a good step forward.”

As part of the rule tweaks, the FIA has banned the use of boost mode to help with overtaking in wet weather as the Miami race faces the threat of wild weather.

Rain and a high chance of storms are currently forecast for the city on race day with the conditions sparking questions about safety.

“I don’t think many of us have driven these cars in the rain before, maybe a couple of people in Barcelona at the shakedown,” Piastri said.

“But I think they’re going to be challenging cars to drive in the rain just because of some of the quirks that they have.

“And obviously the weather, normally if it rains in Miami, it does properly, so we’ll wait and see. But it will be interesting one way or the other.”

As four-time world champion Max Verstappen said he was “taking my time” to consider his future amid his concerns over the sport’s new regulations, the Red Bull ace described the rule tweaks for Miami as just a “tickle”.

“It’s not what we need yet to really make it flat out,” Verstappen said.

“It’s complicated to get everything to agree. I just hope that next year we can make really big, big changes.”