Ahead of the 2026 Mexico City Grand Prix, Oscar Piastri has openly admitted that his team is on the back foot in their fierce constructors' battle against Red Bull. The reigning constructors' champions arrive at the race weekend level on 355 points with Red Bull, but sit fourth on countback as their rivals hold four second-place finishes compared to McLaren's two.
Having already been mathematically eliminated from defending their title following last weekend's United States Grand Prix, McLaren is now locked in a fierce fight to secure third place in the standings. However, Piastri acknowledged that Red Bull currently wields a distinct performance advantage, making the task increasingly formidable.
"You just have to keep fighting," Piastri said regarding the team's attitude heading into the remainder of the season. "I think at the moment, we know we're not as competitive consistently as what Red Bull are. But we're adding performance to the car still. And there's a lot of things that can happen."
The young Australian driver also pointed out that reliability has been a major talking point throughout the 2026 campaign, leaving the door open for unexpected twists. "Reliability has been a big topic this year, so there's still plenty of ways it can turn. But clearly on pure performance, we need to make some steps forward. And we do still have some things coming to the car that'll hopefully help with that. But I think for us it's going to be a big challenge to stay ahead of Red Bull. But we're always up for it," he explained.
Meanwhile, teammate Lando Norris defended the squad's development trajectory over the course of 2026 despite losing ground to direct competitors. Norris pointed out the underlying handling difficulties experienced by the Woking-based outfit during Grands Prix.
"The car has been horrible and difficult to drive the whole season, just other teams have brought a lot more upgrades since and improved a lot more than what we have. Nothing more than that," Norris stated bluntly. "The team is still doing a good job, considering we were almost one and a half seconds off at the beginning of the year, one second off. The fact we even won almost three races was a pretty sizeable achievement in itself."
For Piastri, the weekend at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez presents a vital opportunity to break a challenging streak of results. The Australian is currently on a run of 14 consecutive grands prix without stepping onto the podium, with another miss this weekend matching his career-worst drought of 15 races set during his debut 2023 season.
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