Listen to Pit Talk here ><\/a><\/p>\nSpeaking ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Piastri said the 2026 car wasn\u2019t responding to many of the driving strategies he\u2019s developed throughout his racing career.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously the cars this year \u2014 the power units to one side \u2014 are quite different to what we\u2019ve had previously,\u201d he said. \u201cA lot of the things that have worked for me previously don\u2019t really seem to work this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about trying to find different things that do work. I feel like I\u2019m making some progress on that, but it\u2019s not as simple as you find one direction and that just works for you all the time; you need to constantly adapt and change things.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is part of what makes finding a solution difficult, because the solution is always a little bit different every time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying our best, and I think we are making progress, but we\u2019re certainly not in the place we want to be where we feel like we\u2019re on top of this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oscar Piastri vs Lando Norris<\/p>\n
Qualifying head to head: Norris leads 9-5<\/p>\n
Qualifying differential: Noris ahead 1.1 places<\/p>\n
Qualifying time differential: Norris faster by 0.078s<\/p>\n
Race head to head: Norris leads 6-3<\/p>\n
Race differential: Norris ahead 1.4 places<\/p>\n
Race time differential: Norris ahead by 17.8s<\/p>\n
Points: Norris leads 186-20 (61-39 per cent)<\/p>\n
Russell leant Piastri a sympathetic ear, feeling both the Australian and himself were among a group of drivers who have been disadvantaged by the 2026 regulations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Oscar and I have been dealing with similar sorts of struggles this year,\u201d he said. \u201cThe car is very different, the tyres are different \u2014 power unit aside.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s probably worked so well for the two of us and maybe a couple of other drivers on the grid this year isn\u2019t working as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Englishman added that it was no surprise to see Antonelli and, more recently, Norris emerge as the season\u2019s top performers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think [Antonelli\u2019s] driving style is very similar to what he had last year, and with just how things have fallen this year, it\u2019s kind of the perfect driving style for these cars,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are definitely trends. You look at Brazil last year: Kimi had a really strong race and Lando won, and they are two drivers who are always very strong on the low-grip tracks, and they are two drivers who are arguably the best-performing drivers of this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s see next year if it changes or not, but certainly his natural driving style suits very well for this regulation.\u201d<\/p>\n
F1 stars set to race in Bathurst?! | 03:54<\/p>\n
\u2018WE CAN\u2019T PRACTICE AND WE CANNOT TEST\u2019<\/p>\n
Norris earlier this year derided suggestions that some drivers were at a disadvantage because of their natural driving styles, declaring that \u201cif you\u2019re not ready to adapt to a different car, then you\u2019re not at a good enough level\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s our job; it\u2019s what we\u2019ve got paid millions to do,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s to drive any car you get given, whether it\u2019s a good one, a bad one, an easy one or a hard one. You have to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Piastri, who won three titles in consecutive years in Formula Renault 3.5, Formula 3 and Formula 2, said he was confident that he could overcome his mismatch with the car, but he admitted it would take time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn some ways every F1 car I\u2019ve driven is a bit different as well,\u201d he said. \u201cObviously the regulations for the first three years of my career were the same, but the three cars we had across those three years had some big differences, even in the same regs, and the tyres changed a bit in certain years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m confident that we\u2019re going to make progress.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to find a good time because obviously you\u2019re trying to balance trying to learn, trying stuff that might not necessarily be the fastest way around the track, with trying to score points and get good results. It\u2019s always a tricky balancing act like that.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I\u2019ve got confidence that I can find a way \u2014 and we are finding a way. It\u2019s just that some weekends it\u2019s going to look a bit better than others.\u201d<\/p>\n
CARNAGE as Max takes on 100 drivers | 02:04<\/p>\n
Russell emphasised that the modern F1 schedule was not conducive to making significant driving adjustments given the ban on in-season testing and the shrinking number of practice sessions available to full-time drivers through the increased number of sprint weekends and the requirement to make way for rookies at certain rounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the big challenge in Formula 1 is we can\u2019t practise and we cannot test,\u201d he said. \u201cI use the golf analogy: if you want to change your golf swing, you go to the driving range and you practise, practise, practise until your next tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to practise at the event. We have to practise in qualifying. We have to practics in the race because it\u2019s our only opportunity.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe progression of making these changes takes longer than any other sport because we\u2019re just not allowed to practise. That is the challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got no doubt we can achieve it, because we\u2019ve both been racing for a long time. We\u2019re two of the few drivers who have won F4, F3 and F2, which are all different race cars made by different manufacturers and different tyres on different racetracks.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got no doubt in my ability. I\u2019m sure Oscar has no doubt in his ability. But right now we\u2019re racing against the very best in the world, and it just takes a little bit of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
George Russell vs Andrea Kimi Antonelli<\/p>\n
Qualifying head to head: Antonelli leads 8-6<\/p>\n
Qualifying differential: Antonelli ahead 0.8 places<\/p>\n
Qualifying time differential: Antonelli faster by 0.124s<\/p>\n
Race head to head: Antonelli leads 8-3<\/p>\n
Race differential: Antonelli ahead 1.1 places<\/p>\n
Race time differential: Antonelli ahead by 15.6s<\/p>\n
Points: Antonelli leads 292-211 (58-41 per cent)<\/p>\n
McLaren boss Stella has talked about the team working with Piastri in much the same way it worked to cure Norris\u2019s unease in the car early last year, when the Briton felt he couldn\u2019t get the most from his machinery due to a lack of feedback from the front axle.<\/p>\n
Though new components played a role, Norris reprogrammed himself to exploit the car where he could, and he ended the campaign in devastating fashion to claim the championship.<\/p>\n
Piastri said he felt backed by the team to make the same progress, which he felt was coming.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re throwing everything we can at trying to improve, which has been good,\u201d he said. \u201cAgain, there are only so many things you can do without just jumping in the car and trying stuff, but with the limited time we have, you need to have a good idea or good set of ideas that you want to action. You can\u2019t just try random stuff.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like it\u2019s been a very good team response in trying to improve things as quickly as we can. I feel like I\u2019m being well supported.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe progress isn\u2019t linear. You\u2019re always going to find some things that work, go down some paths that don\u2019t work, and we\u2019re still very much in that phase at the moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like we\u2019re making progress and at least exploring different things, and some are working, some aren\u2019t. But we\u2019re not standing still, which is the most important thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Azerbaijan Grand Prix 2026 schedule (AEST)<\/p>\n
Thursday: FP1 at 6:30pm, FP2 at 10pm.<\/p>\n
Friday: FP3 at 6:30pm, qualifying at 10pm.<\/p>\n
Saturday: Race at 9pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri says \u201cprogress isn\u2019t linear\u201d as he attempts to overcome the same adaptation problems that have prevented…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":903072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-903071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903071","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=903071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/903072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=903071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=903071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=903071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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