{"id":873118,"date":"2026-08-29T22:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T22:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/873118\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T22:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T22:02:10","slug":"oscar-piastri-quite-tough-admission-as-lando-norris-pulls-clear-at-mclaren","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/873118\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri \u2018quite tough\u2019 admission as Lando Norris pulls clear at McLaren"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oscar Piastri<\/a> has admitted there have been some \u201cquite tough\u201d weekends this season, with a calendar year set to pass since his most recent Formula 1 victory.<\/p>\n

Piastri left Zandvoort last season with a 34-point lead in the Drivers\u2019 Championship, but was subsequently reeled in by both Lando Norris and Max Verstappen come season\u2019s end, and is currently 55 points behind his teammate in 2026.<\/p>\n

Oscar Piastri makes \u2018quite tough weekends\u2019 admission as Norris form improves<\/p>\n

Piastri led the standings for a significant portion of last season, establishing himself as a firm frontrunner before his year somewhat petered out, and has struggled in recent weekends to match Norris\u2019 outright pace.<\/p>\n

Norris has attributed his performances of late to \u201cdoing a better job than everyone\u201d<\/a> in a moment of self-praise, having won two races in a row, while Piastri has yet to hit the same highs in 2026.<\/p>\n

The Australian was reflective on how 2025 played out, and acknowledged both his and McLaren\u2019s competitiveness overall has not been as he would have liked it so far in 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, the second half of last year was definitely more challenging from a few errors,\u201d Piastri told by PlanetF1.com and other media.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a few chances, obviously, and this year has been challenging as well from a few different angles, both the competitiveness of us as a team and also myself.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome weekends in particular have been quite tough, so I think it\u2019s just how things have played out here.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Norris having hit the front at two circuits which have seemingly suited the MCL40\u2019s characteristics, McLaren is seeking to recover ground to Ferrari in the Constructors\u2019 standings, with a two-part update having proven fruitful over the past two races.<\/p>\n

More on McLaren from PlanetF1.com<\/p>\n

McLaren strategy genius as Lando Norris Dutch GP telemetry data emerges<\/a><\/p>\n

McLaren reveals \u2018double intent\u2019 as FIA hearing held over Monaco GP controversy<\/a><\/p>\n

Slower corners had previously been attributed as one of the areas where the car struggles, with Piastri admitting that to be the case, though it is not a defining feature \u2013 pointing to how Norris performed in both Hungary and the Netherlands.<\/p>\n

Asked if slow-speed corners are an issue after the Dutch Grand Prix, Piastri replied: \u201cI mean, it\u2019s probably the weakest point, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s that bad.<\/p>\n

\u201cLando has won the race [by] quite a lot, so I think the car is in a good place.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been quick the last two weekends. I think these two tracks suit the car well, it\u2019s just for whatever reason I\u2019ve not been able to get the pace out of it.\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

Read next: Mercedes \u2018haven\u2019t got the money\u2019 to react to rival upgrade push<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri has admitted there have been some \u201cquite tough\u201d weekends this season, with a calendar year set…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":873119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,818,913,806,805,803,804,44,2333,85,13852],"class_list":["post-873118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-home-page","tag-mclaren","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-news","tag-oscar-piastri","tag-sports","tag-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/873119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}