{"id":939943,"date":"2026-10-25T03:02:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T03:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/939943\/"},"modified":"2026-10-25T03:02:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T03:02:13","slug":"incredibly-difficult-piastris-honest-mclaren-admission-as-head-scratcher-leaves-aussie-baffled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/939943\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Incredibly difficult\u2019: Piastri\u2019s honest McLaren admission as \u2018head-scratcher\u2019 leaves Aussie baffled"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oscar Piastri said his McLaren is \u201cincredibly difficult to drive\u201d after a disappointing qualifying session at the United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas.<\/p>\n

Piastri will start the main race from seventh place, as he has done in half the races this year, while championship leader Kimi Antonelli claimed pole position<\/a> as he tries to wrap up the title this weekend.<\/p>\n

\ufeffFox 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 | Get Kayo now.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Australian was bumped up a place on the grid after teammate Lando Norris had his lap time deleted for track limits, but that was little consolation from an underwhelming Saturday.<\/p>\n

In his post-qualifying interview, a reporter said to Piastri that \u201cit felt like a bit of a battle today\u201d and the 25-year-old smirked and nodded his head.<\/p>\n

The reporter continued, saying: \u201cTalk me through that quali. It looked a bit up-and-down, from my perspective, in terms of your pace.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if it was ever up,\u201d Piastri replied with a small chuckle.<\/p>\n

McLaren sent Piastri out on medium tyres in Q1 – only he and the two Mercedes\u2019 were not on softs – and he struggled to 12th place as Norris was fastest.<\/p>\n

He then dangerously flirted with an exit in Q2, sitting in tenth before starting his final lap.<\/p>\n

Although, Piastri came home strong to be sixth-fastest as Ferrari\u2019s Charles Leclerc topped the time sheet.<\/p>\n

In that session, the Australian was also flagged by FIA stewards for allegedly exceeding the maximum lap time – but they decided to take no further action.<\/p>\n

Things did not get much better in Q3 and Piastri said his performance was a \u201chead-scratcher\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been tough all weekend,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s just not been any pace so it\u2019s a bit of a bit of head-scratcher.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the car has the potential to be quick but it\u2019s just incredibly difficult to drive. It\u2019s been a challenge from the first lap yesterday until now so it\u2019s not a massive surprise to end up where we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AUSTIN,AUSTIN, TEXAS – OCTOBER 24: Oscar Piastri of Australia driving the (81) McLaren MCL40 Mercedes on track during qualifying ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of United States at Circuit of The Americas on October 24, 2026 in Austin, Texas. Chris Graythen\/Getty Images\/AFPSource: AFP<\/p>\n

McLaren introduced several aerodynamic changes to its car for this weekend\u2019s race. <\/p>\n

But Piastri said the team had not expected to make significant gains despite the modifications.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve tried a lot of stuff but nothing\u2019s really seemed to be the fix,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t really expect any of the changes we made to make a massive difference but it\u2019s just been incredibly difficult to get lap time out of the car.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just one of those weekends at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri said his McLaren is \u201cincredibly difficult to drive\u201d after a disappointing qualifying session at the United…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":939944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-939943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939943","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=939943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/939944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=939943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=939943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=939943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}