![\"Piastri](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/XPB_1423697_HiRes.jpg\")
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOscar Piastri and McLaren continue to be at a loss as to why their pace has dropped off in Britain. Image: XPB Images<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOscar Piastri and McLaren continue to be at a loss as to why their pace has dropped off in Britain. Image: XPB Images<\/p>\n
The Australian finished seventh<\/a> in the sprint before qualifying eighth for Sunday\u2019s grand prix<\/a>, marking his lowest qualifying result of the 2026 season.<\/p>\n Lando Norris fared better across Saturday, charging from sixth to third in the sprint before qualifying sixth, but McLaren remained well adrift of Mercedes and Ferrari across both sessions.<\/p>\n Piastri said the team was still trying to understand why the car had been so difficult to manage across the weekend.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah there was a lot of it. Just struggled a lot with rear grip,\u201d Piastri told Sky Sports when asked about how much head scratching had been happening on his side of the garage.<\/p>\n \u201cWe thought we made some pretty sensible changes into qualifying, but they just didn\u2019t really have the impact we were hoping for I guess.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, yeah, a bit of a surprise as to why it\u2019s been so tricky the whole weekend.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been battling with the balance of the car the whole weekend which normally I feel like we just feel like we lack grip and downforce.<\/p>\n \u201cThis weekend it\u2019s been a pretty big handful to drive the car. So hopefully we can see what we can do tomorrow and make it a little bit nicer.\u201d<\/p>\n The result compounded a frustrating weekend for Piastri, who started and finished seventh in the sprint despite being involved in a hectic early battle with Norris, George Russell, Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc.<\/p>\n He said the opening laps had been difficult to read from inside the car as the pack fought for position behind the leaders.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah it was pretty chaotic. That\u2019s for sure,\u201d Piastri said.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean it was very hard to work out what was going on in the car. Just trying to avoid crashing into the back of people most of the time.<\/p>\n \u201cSo pretty chaotic. I think a few things we can do a bit better for sure.<\/p>\n \u201cBut yeah, we also want to improve the car a bit because we\u2019re struggling a little bit. I think the pace looked okay then. Just very difficult to get that out of the car.\u201d<\/p>\n Piastri said McLaren\u2019s starts had again been a strength, but admitted there was little else to be satisfied with heading into the grand prix.<\/p>\n \u201cOur starts all year have been strong,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI was surprised it was so good. But I think that\u2019s definitely the positive.<\/p>\n \u201cI think everything else we need to improve a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n Looking ahead to Sunday, Piastri said the most realistic target was trying to move ahead of the Red Bull pair, with Verstappen seventh and Isack Hadjar fifth on the grid.<\/p>\n \u201cI think trying to beat the Red Bulls is probably the main opportunity,\u201d Piastri said.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe we can beat the Ferarris, but I\u2019m not particularly optimistic. So we\u2019ll see how we go.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean the first few laps of the sprint this morning were chaos. So hopefully we can get amongst it and hang on from there.\u201d<\/p>\n Norris was more upbeat after the sprint, where he made early progress and held third despite McLaren managing fuel and lacking the pace of the leading pair.<\/p>\n \u201cI was managing quite a lot. I\u2019m very happy with today,\u201d Norris told Sky Sports.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a very good result. Always nice to do it here as well over any other tracks. So a pleasant surprise.<\/p>\n \u201cVery good launch. Very good opening lap. Some good battles with both George and with Max as well. So well fought and just better than I was expecting.<\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t like the pace was crazy strong, because these guys just checked out and disappeared.<\/p>\n \u201cBut the fact I managed to hold on and not make mistakes and things was good. So I\u2019m very happy with today.\u201d<\/p>\n However, Norris was far more downbeat after qualifying, admitting McLaren\u2019s lack of pace was too large to explain away.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is just quite poor from our side,\u201d Norris said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut a track like this is just efficiency of car at the same time. We\u2019re losing in cornering and we\u2019re also losing a pretty insane amount in the sraights.<\/p>\n \u201cBut that\u2019s just efficiency. That\u2019s just understanding of this car and the dynamics of this car.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd the two teams that understand it better than everyone, Ferrari and Mercedes, are the guys who are way ahead.<\/p>\n \u201cSo no excuses. We know we\u2019ve not done a good enough job. But the guys and girls are working hard. We just need to play a lot of catch up.\u201d<\/p>\n Norris said McLaren could not afford to wait for gradual progress if it wanted to close the gap to the front.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to catch up eight tenths and we want to be ahead by two tenths,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cSo it\u2019s a mixture of a lot of things. It\u2019s still stuff that will take time.<\/p>\n \u201cBut the team know that time is not on our side. Like we don\u2019t have all day and all week and all month to slowly understand it.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got to understand the car now and we\u2019ve got to bring parts to the car as quickly as possible and quicker than every other team.\u201d<\/p>\n Team principal Andrea Stella said after the sprint that McLaren had found some performance since practice, but conceded Hamilton and Antonelli had been quicker.<\/p>\n \u201cWell enough pace to keep up in P3. If we look at Hamilton and Antonelli, [they] seem decently faster than us,\u201d Stella told Sky Sports.<\/p>\n \u201cSo we know we have work to do. But in a way, considering that we started this weekend a little bit on the back foot in practice, we found some performance in the sprint quali.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd it looks like we have found some further performance into the sprint. So we now need to keep improving the car.\u201d<\/p>\n The British Grand Prix gets underway at 3pm local time on Sunday (12am AEST Monday).<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SCA-1196-Wk1-Cat-BPO-Speedcafe_728x90.jpg\")
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