Oscar Piastri Delivers Double Podium Weekend at Miami But Questions Remain Over 2026 Racing Quality

Oscar Piastri delivered McLaren’s most complete weekend of the 2026 season at the Miami Grand Prix, finishing second in Saturday’s Sprint before a combative drive from seventh on the grid to third in Sunday’s main race, passing George Russell and Charles Leclerc in the process as the Australian finally got what he described as his “first proper experience” of wheel-to-wheel action under the new regulations. The results confirmed McLaren’s significant upgrade package had landed as hoped, but Piastri was frank in his assessment of what the regulations still need before the racing can be considered genuinely fixed.



Piastri’s Sunday drive required him to make up places through traffic in conditions he described as “very, very tricky around here, especially in these conditions.” His late pass on Leclerc with just over a lap remaining proved decisive.



“But clearly we’re a step closer in performance once again,” he said, pointing to an encouraging arc of improvement. He sits sixth in the Drivers’ Championship with 43 points, 57 behind leader Kimi Antonelli, with the gap sizeable but the trajectory heading in the right direction after what he acknowledged was a difficult start to the campaign.



The qualifying picture told a different story. Piastri progressed from Q1 by a margin of just 0.009 seconds, a result he called “random” in the post-race press conference and something he found genuinely difficult to explain given the car’s apparent race pace. “Qualifying was a little bit harder to read. I think our impression after qualifying was that the others had just kind of maximised what they had a lot more, but we knew we had a little bit to find again after qualifying.” That dichotomy between qualifying and race pace has been a persistent theme in 2026 given how the energy management demands differ between the two disciplines.



On the FIA’s regulation tweaks implemented ahead of Miami, specifically reducing the maximum permitted energy regeneration in qualifying from eight megajoules to seven, Piastri gave credit where he felt it was due but refused to overstate the impact. “I think reducing the harvest limit in qualifying has helped a bit. It’s not fixed the problem or all the problems, but it’s helping with one. The races are basically exactly the same,” he said flatly. The closing speed issue that contributed to Oliver Bearman’s 50G crash in Japan remains unresolved for race conditions, and Piastri acknowledged that excessive differential in approach speeds between attacking and defending cars is still a live and genuine safety concern.



Looking ahead to Canada, Piastri expressed cautious optimism about McLaren’s competitive position against Mercedes while noting the Silver Arrows had not brought their full upgrade package to Miami. “Obviously Mercedes didn’t bring a lot this weekend and they also have an upgrade package for Canada, so we’ll have to wait and see how much that’s worth for them.” It is the right kind of humility from a driver whose team now clearly has the machinery to compete at the front, but who understands that the championship picture over a full season is dictated by consistency rather than individual weekend brilliance.



McLaren leads the Constructors’ battle with Mercedes ahead in the points after the two strong DNFs from the Chinese Grand Prix, but the gap has narrowed and the trend line from Miami points in a more encouraging direction.
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