Oscar Piastri Admits McLaren Cannot Fight Three Rivals

Oscar Piastri admitted McLaren lacked the fundamental pace required to fight at the front on Friday at the 2026 British Grand Prix. The Woking-based team qualified only sixth and seventh in Sprint Qualifying through Lando Norris and Piastri.

Lewis Hamilton claimed Sprint pole after narrowly beating Kimi Antonelli, while McLaren finished around four tenths of a second away from the benchmark pace. That deficit left Piastri feeling seventh place broadly reflected the MCL40’s actual level at Silverstone.

“P7 is more or less what we expected,” Piastri said.

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“We knew coming into Sprint Qualifying that we probably were not in the fight for the very front. We made some small improvements to the car after practice, but it was not enough to close the gap to the leaders,” he added.

Piastri stressed that McLaren’s issue was not simply a matter of small execution details. In his view, the car lacked the core performance needed to challenge Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull over a single lap.

“It is a shame because I felt like we were on it and got everything we could out of the car, but we have just not had the fundamental pace,” he said.

Parc ferme conditions mean McLaren cannot make significant set-up changes until after the Sprint. That limits the team’s ability to immediately correct the car balance and leaves Norris and Piastri committed to the same configuration for the shorter race.

“It was a tricky day, but we are not discouraged,” Piastri said.

“We ended up close to that next group of cars, which gives us something to work with. We will analyse everything overnight, see what we can optimise, and be ready to push hard and fight for a better result in qualifying tomorrow before the main race on Sunday,” he added.

McLaren’s focus now turns to its post-Sprint evaluation at Silverstone Circuit. If the team can find improvements in set-up, tyre management and aerodynamic efficiency, Piastri still has an opportunity to recover in main qualifying and keep McLaren relevant in the fight for major points on Sunday.