Oscar Piastri: ‘We did everything right and still got beaten by 15 seconds’

• Oscar Piastri finished second at the 2026 Japanese Grand Prix, leading the race from the start before the Safety Car handed the advantage back to Kimi Antonelli.
• Piastri described the weekend as one of his best in Formula 1, crediting strong preparation across practice and qualifying as the foundation for McLaren’s result.
• The Australian said he came away from Suzuka believing Mercedes are beatable, but was clear-eyed that a significant performance gap to the championship leader remains.

Oscar Piastri Takes Second at Suzuka but Warns McLaren Still Has Ground to Cover

Second place at Suzuka was, by Oscar Piastri‘s own assessment, as close to a perfect weekend as McLaren could have produced. The result still came up short, and he made no attempt to dress it up otherwise.

Piastri got away cleanly at the start, going around Kimi Antonelli as the Mercedes driver spun his wheels off the line. Asked whether the getaway was exceptional, he kept his answer measured. “I thought it was good, but I didn’t think it was super special,” he said. “I saw Kimi go into wheelspin straight away and I didn’t really see what George was doing, and then obviously having to go around Kimi meant that the rest of my start was a little bit compromised. But yeah, it was good enough to get into the lead, which was great.”

From the front, Piastri was able to pull away from George Russell before the pit stops, a detail he returned to more than once as evidence of McLaren’s genuine competitiveness. When asked which aspect of the car’s performance pleased him most across the weekend, he was thorough. “I’m not sure there was one that I was massively pleased with, but I think, clearly, we did a good job at the start today. I think this weekend we just did a really good job of optimising what we had, and I think from practice we were in a good window with the car in FP2 and we managed to get it back in that window for qualifying. We had a really good understanding of what we wanted from the power unit and how we had to kind of dial it in for the qualifying grip level.” He added that the race pace came as a welcome surprise. “I think the pace was probably a positive surprise. I think having clean air probably helped quite a lot at the start, but we did a good job, and I could pull away from George a little bit right before the stops. And yes, I think the strategy was good as well. So, I think we just nailed everything.”

The Safety Car cost Piastri the lead at the critical moment. Asked whether its timing had denied him the win, he gave an honest account of what he thought would have played out. “I would have loved to have seen how it would have panned out. I think I need to look back and see whether Kimi was quicker than George or similar pace. I think if he was the same pace as George then it would have been a pretty stressful afternoon because I probably would have had both of them right on my gearbox. But yeah, I mean, I think once Kimi had clean air, clearly, he was a lot faster than me. So, I’m not sure we would have won the race, but I certainly would have loved to have found out.”

On the podium, Piastri had made clear that a disappointing second place was, in context, a strong position for McLaren to be in. In the press conference he went further, saying the result offered genuine encouragement about the team’s ability to take the fight to Mercedes. “I think we knew from last year, or we know from last year, that even when you have the best car you still need to operate it at an incredibly high level. And I think today on our side we did a really good job of that. But I think it’s interesting to see when someone else has the fastest car that it’s not that straightforward.” The fact that Russell was kept behind for a sustained period was the detail that gave him the most confidence. “Yeah, I think the fact that I could keep George behind for so long was really encouraging. But we’re under no illusion. We did everything right this weekend and we still got beaten by 15 seconds, so we’ve got a pretty big gap to fill. I’m confident that we can get there, but yes, we’ve still got some work to do.”

Reflecting on the weekend as a whole, Piastri was willing to rank it against the best of his career to that point. “I think this weekend was probably one of my best weekends in F1. I think I felt like I hit the ground running in practice, qualifying. I think we did a really good job of getting the car into the window I was happy with on Friday. I felt like I drove well in qualifying. In the race, yeah, there wasn’t anything more we could have done.” He pointed to the way he handled the energy management side of the new regulations as a specific area of improvement. “I felt like I was strategic or smart with how I used the boost and how I managed that side of racing. Our strategy was good, you know, we didn’t blink too early.” He closed with a note of caution about what the result actually represents for McLaren’s season. “Clearly, we’ve still got some, firstly, performance to find, but also on Lando’s side of the garage was a pretty interrupted weekend with all the issues, and clearly the start of the season has not been easy for us with reliability, so we’ve got a long way to go. But yeah, I think we showed that if we get everything as good as we can get it, then we can cause a few headaches.”

On the closing-speed safety concerns raised by Ollie Bearman’s accident, Piastri acknowledged this was a known risk from the moment the 2026 regulations were conceived. “We’ve spoken about that being a possibility since these cars were conceptualised. Yeah, it’s what we’re stuck with, with the power units. There’s no easy way of getting around it.” He added that the incident highlighted a gap in driver awareness that will take time to close. “I had a pretty close call in free practice with Nico because he caught me about three times as quick as I expected on the straight, and we were both at full throttle. So, I think there’s clearly an element of learning for us as drivers, and where the accident happened it’s not a place where you expect someone to come from so far behind and have such a big speed difference. And whilst we’re learning that, unfortunately things like this are probably going to happen, which is a shame. But, you know, I think we understand as a sport there’s a lot of things we need to tweak, a lot of things we need to change, and especially on safety grounds, yes, there’s some things that need to be looked into pretty quickly.”

Want more F1Chronicle.com coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for the best F1 news and analysis on the internet.