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Here is the thing about these modern Formula 1 machines: they have a nasty habit of rewriting how a driver has to operate. McLaren CEO Zak Brown is convinced that Oscar Piastri is finally turning a corner and returning to the driver he knows, following a rocky spell adapting to the MCL40.
It has been a proper test for the Australian this year. After finishing third in the Drivers' Championship last season, 2026 brought a heavy dose of friction. He has two podium finishes on the board, but matching team mate Lando Norris has proved a mountain to climb. Norris has bagged two Grand Prix victories and stamped his authority in qualifying, leading Piastri 11 to 17 across the rounds so far. But during the Friday press conference at the Singapore Grand Prix, Brown saw the green shoots he was waiting for.
The target is to come into every weekend with the chance to win,
"I think he is," Brown said when asked if Piastri was getting back to his usual self. "I think we've seen with these cars, it's kind of mixed up the field a little bit, right? Lewis [Hamilton] is getting the better out of the Ferrari right now, George [Russell] got more out of the car last year than Kimi [Antonelli]. That’s moved around. I think these cars are so complex. Some have adapted a little bit quicker than others, but I’m liking what I’m seeing out of Oscar. He’s feeling more confident and on top of things. I like where both our drivers are now."
The roots of the struggle are mechanical and instinctual. McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella previously pointed out that the complex demands of the MCL40 meant Piastri could not simply rely on pure instinct in certain conditions. Ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, the driver himself admitted the puzzle has not been easy to solve. "A lot of the things that have worked for me previously don’t really seem to work this year, so it’s about trying to find different things that do work," Piastri explained. "I’m making some progress on that but it’s 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."
There have been brutal weekends to weather along the way. At the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, a gamble to start on medium tyres in the wet at Sepang backfired and triggered an early stop, leading to a sixth-place finish. Then came an eventful Singapore Grand Prix weekend where a Saturday Sprint retirement arrived courtesy of a final-lap collision with team mate Norris, followed by a slow puncture on Sunday that mandated an unscheduled stop. Still, he managed to salvage a fifth-place finish by passing Hamilton on the final lap.
"It felt pretty reasonable I would say," Piastri said of that P5 drive. "I think we just didn’t quite have enough pace. We couldn’t go with Max [Verstappen] and Charles [Leclerc]. I think Kimi was a little bit quicker than us as well. There wasn’t really too much we could do other than where we ended up."
With the final stretch of the season looming, Brown is keeping the ambitions sky high despite a ruthless grid where the top four teams are constantly trading blows. "The target is to come into every weekend with the chance to win," Brown stated. "We feel more on top of things than we have for the past couple of races, and we won the last couple of races prior to that. It shows how competitive the sport is and how quickly the top four teams, the whole grid for that matter, is moving around in levels of competitiveness. Our goal is to try to come to each race weekend and win, but that’s easier said than done."
