While Oscar Piastri accepts that being a works team has “its advantages”, he has downplayed the impact that will have as McLaren gears up to take on Mercedes for the F1 2026 titles.
McLaren heads into Formula 1’s new chassis and engine era as the reigning champions in both the Drivers’ and Constructors’, but it is Mercedes which is the pre-season favourite.
Is McLaren at a disadvantage to Mercedes?
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Formula 1 welcomes a new era this season, the sport is not only introducing new cars that include active aerodynamics, but the engine formula has also changed.
It is, on paper at least, an advantage for the works teams such as Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull and Aston Martin, which is Honda’s only partner.
Although the teams were only permitted to begin work on their 2026 machines on January 1 2025, giving everyone 13 months from design idea to first laps in the Barcelona shakedown, the sport’s engine manufacturers were already working on their power units long before that.
It meant they could already, to some degree, plot how the engine and the chassis would work together and integrate the two before their customers.
More on McLaren’s form in pre-season
What to watch out for at F1 2026 pre-season testing in Bahrain
F1 results: Unofficial numbers from the Barcelona shakedown
However, Piastri says such is McLaren’s relationship with Mercedes’ engine division, having switched back to Mercedes power in 2021, that he doesn’t believe it will be a telling disadvantage for McLaren.
“Not necessarily,” Piastri told PlanetF1.com and other media outlets.
“Being a works team obviously has its advantages, especially now given that there is development again on the engine side of things.
“We’ve obviously got a very close relationship with Mercedes HPP, which is very beneficial to us.
“All our teething problems we had in the [Barcelona] test were not to do with not being a works team.
“So I don’t think there’s necessarily a disadvantage.
“We may be a little bit behind, that they’ve had years to kind of really integrate these rules to their car, but we’ve been in that process for a long time as well.
“So I don’t think it’s necessarily a disadvantage.”
In fact, the Australian racer reckons the biggest difference will be who made the best use of the 12 months prior to the Barcelona shakedown.
“It’s more going to be about who was able to capitalise in the last 12 months on the aero testing and just getting things organised,’ he said.
“That’s what was very impressive about Mercedes in particular is how they hit the ground running and were able to do 150-plus laps every day, which is probably the most impressive thing so far.”
Mercedes topped the lap count at the shakedown, unofficially covering 500 laps with McLaren on 291.
As for the lap times, George Russell was second fastest in the W17, a tenth behind Lewis Hamilton, while Lando Norris was third for McLaren, a further 0.15 down on Russell.
The teams return to action on Wednesday in Bahrain for the start of the first official three-day pre-season test.
The new F1 season begins 6 March with FP1 for the Australian Grand Prix.
Additional reporting by Thomas Maher
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