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<\/p>\nA strong weekend at the Italian Grand Prix confirmed to McLaren that Oscar Piastri is returning to good form near the end of a tough European campaign.<\/p>\n
After not starting the first two races of the season, Piastri got his 2026 underway strongly, outqualifying teammate Lando Norris three grands prix in a row and making an unlikely victory bid at the first race he completed in Japan, where he fell short only thanks to a badly timed safety car.<\/p>\n
He kicked on with another podium at the following race in Miami, but he hasn\u2019t been back on the rostrum in the four months since then.<\/p>\n
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Fox Sports, available on Kayo Sports, is the only place to watch every practice, qualifying session and race in the 2026 FIA Formula One World Championship\u2122 LIVE in 4K. New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\n Norris, meanwhile, has gradually grown in strength, and the reigning world champion immediately clicked with McLaren\u2019s first major upgrade in Hungary, romping to victory in Budapest and again at the following race in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n Piastri qualifying pace hasn\u2019t been in question, with the margin between the drivers tighter than it was last year, at 0.047s, despite the 8-5 head-to-head count.<\/p>\n Race pace, however, has been difficult, with Piastri well behind Norris at the previous two rounds.<\/p>\n In Italy, however, he led the way in qualifying \u2014 even taking an unlikely shot at pole \u2014 and was a match for Norris in the race, losing fourth position to his teammate only on the last lap after a tight battle for position.<\/p>\n Team boss Andrea Stella, who is a long-time backer of Piastri\u2019s potential, said after the Dutch Grand Prix that the team would put its arm around Piastri in a bid to solve his problem, just as it had done with Norris after the Englishman\u2019s early struggles last year.<\/p>\n In Italy he said the signs were positive that the approach was working.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s a race that confirms a trajectory with Oscar,\u201d he said, per the F1 website. \u201cWe\u2019ve had a couple of races in which we saw that for the requirements of this year\u2019s car, especially in the race when the car slides, we needed to make some adaptations to his natural driving style.<\/p>\n \u201cWe kind of adopted the same approach that we used with Lando last year, and we saw pretty rapidly some developments.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were happy to see how competitive Oscar was in Zandvoort in qualifying trim. We said we need to do a little bit more for the race trim, we put in some work, and it\u2019s good that this work seems like it\u2019s been useful here in Monza.\u201d<\/p>\n MORE FORMULA 1<\/p>\n TALKING POINTS: Why knee-jerk Piastri whack makes no sense; blow-up that\u2019s \u2018hard to swallow\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n \u2018I JUST MISS HIM\u2019: Vettel\u2019s Schumacher tribute after emotional drive in icon\u2019s legendary Ferrari<\/a><\/p>\n