Piastri lifts lid on finding a fix to nightmare F1 season

Oscar Piastri has gone more than a year without a race win, and the Australian is adamant there’s no easy fix to the issues he is experiencing with the McLaren car this season.

Rewind 12 months and Piastri was sitting top of the driver standings and was odds-on favourite to be crowned world champion; we all know what happened in the second half of 2025 and things have not improved since.

New regulations this year have significantly hampered Piastri more so than his teammate Lando Norris, who last week secured his second win of the season to put the papaya team back on the map. So what exactly is the issue?

"I think it's never been the same issue or thing we're chasing every weekend,” Piastri told the media ahead of this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix. “It's always been slightly different which I think kind of raises a bigger question.

"If it was just one thing we kept struggling with it would, in some ways, be a bit of an easy fix but I think the fact we've kind of found different ways of having difficulty, we've been trying to answer that question.

"And we are getting closer, finding more ideas and ultimately the only way you can really solve it is by trying stuff on track.

“Not saying that we've gone away and found this problem; we've definitely got ideas on how we can make things better, both from how I drive the car and how we set up the car.

"Hopefully we can find something that works a bit better. I think in Zandvoort, Qualifying was a much bigger step, Lando and I were very close but clearly in the race there was a deficit. That's the area we're trying to work on."

Piastri has made it onto the podium on just two occasions this year. He also has two did not starts and one did not finish to his name leaving him seventh in the driver standings and 138 points off leader Kimi Antonelli of Mercedes.

The season has been a frustrating one for Piastri who adds that some of the fixes are totally out of his control.

"There's definitely things that have not been as easy or as comfortable this year compared to last year," he said.

"Some things we can fix quickly, some things we can't. I think these cars in general, the concept is very different, the tyres are quite different.

"There's a lot of things as well that are not necessarily in our control.

“Also, this season not been easy for other reasons, we've had a lot of struggles with reliability or bad luck."