Oscar Piastri has said optimising power unit deployment remains the single largest performance differentiator over a lap this season.<\/p>\n
McLaren admitted the need to take time to get to grips with its customer Mercedes power earlier in the year, with the team now working with the High Performance Powertrains division looking to maximise its potential.<\/p>\n
Oscar Piastri: F1 2026 engines \u2018biggest area of lap time\u2019<\/p>\n
Want more PlanetF1.com coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google<\/a> to your favourites list for news you can trust<\/p>\n McLaren team principal Andrea Stella was open in acknowledging at the start of the season that his team needed to learn to make the most of the new Mercedes power unit, with the main pitfall of a customer engine coming from a lack of knowledge compared to the factory team.<\/p>\n The reigning Constructors\u2019 champions currently sit third in the standings, albeit 154 points behind Mercedes in the lead as we near the halfway point of the season.<\/p>\n Piastri<\/a> denied that circumstances around power unit deployment change too much for the requirements of a Sprint weekend, with a significant amount of work placed into optimising each weekend before it starts.<\/p>\n \u201cThe only thing that would change things massively is physics or different engines, which we\u2019re not going to get, obviously,\u201d Piastri told PlanetF1.com and others at Silverstone.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do so much preparation with these engines \u2013 we\u2019re certainly not just rocking up on the track and seeing what happens.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do hundreds of laps in the simulator with us [Piastri and Lando Norris], test drivers, offline simulations, because at the moment power units are the biggest area for lap time still.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a pretty good idea of what we think will be optimal, or at least what\u2019s very close to it, but you can\u2019t magically generate energy out of thin air, which is what we all want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n More on what comes next in Formula 1<\/p>\n F1 2027 driver line-up: Which drivers are already confirmed for the 2027 grid?<\/a><\/p>\n F1 schedule: When is the next race and where is\u00a0it\u00a0being\u00a0held?<\/a><\/p>\n Last weekend\u2019s British Grand Prix at Silverstone and the upcoming Belgian Grand Prix are both hosted at so-called \u2018energy-starved\u2019 circuits, where recharging opportunities are at an overall deficit compared to power output.<\/p>\n Piastri pointed out the differences that can lead to in straight-line speed, and that despite the label of \u2018yo-yo\u2019 or \u2018Mario Kart\u2019 racing having taken place earlier in the season, judging overtakes in those circumstances are not as easy as they appear.<\/p>\n \u201cAt some tracks there\u2019s been quite a good [energy] balance,\u201d he explained. \u201cIn Austria, for example, was actually a pretty good balance.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the risk on all these energy-starved circuits is you end up with crazy situations where someone\u2019s half a second faster in one straight, half a second slower in the next, and at certain points it\u2019s dangerous.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve got cars with 30 or 40 kilometres an hour differences in a straight line, and the drivers can\u2019t do anything about it, because either the deployment\u2019s deploying when we wouldn\u2019t necessarily choose to, or out of battery, and we can\u2019t deploy anything we want to.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s entertaining. I think on TV it looks much, much more simple than it is behind the wheel, so I won\u2019t say any more, but at some tracks, there\u2019s a decent balance, at other tracks it\u2019s silly, or they\u2019re all references to a certain video game, so I don\u2019t need to say that.\u201d<\/p>\n Additional reporting by Thomas Maher<\/p>\n Want to be the first to know exclusive information from the F1 paddock? Join our broadcast channel on WhatsApp<\/a> to get the scoop on the latest developments from our team of accredited journalists.<\/p>\n You can also subscribe to the PlanetF1 YouTube channel<\/a> for exclusive features, hear from our paddock journalists with stories from the heart of Formula 1 and much more!<\/p>\n