Piastri hopes McLaren will 'come out ahead' in 2026

McLaren driver Oscar Piastri hopes the Woking-based outfit will "come out ahead" of the field in 2026 when the all-new technical regulation comes into force.

The Woking squad enjoyed an impressive turnaround in 2023, jumping up to become Red Bull's closest challengers by the end of the campaign, but have continued to progress this year.

The 2026 F1 season will see F1 introduce an all-new aerodynamics and engine regulation. With previous technical overhauls having led to big changes in the pecking order, McLaren driver Oscar Piastri hopes that the Woking-based outfit will master the new regulations.

“It’s an exciting prospect. Changes to the engine – which will happen in 2026 – can introduce differences [up and down the grid],” he said. “So, there will be a large margin for improvement for the teams over time.”

“History has shown that there's normally one team that gets it right more than the others initially. It wouldn't be a total surprise to see if one team kind of comes out ahead in ‘26. Hopefully, that's us. But we'll wait and see.”

In a talk with Forbes, the Australian explained his training schedule, revealing that the first three days of the week usually see him train and perform work in McLaren's simulator.

“It depends a bit on the schedule [with the simulator],” he said, “It could be just time the week before, often more during the week before… sometimes Tuesday could be a simulator day so you have to train on Monday, fly into McLaren on Tuesday, use the simulator, train some more on Wednesday and then arrive at the track that night or Thursday morning for media day at the track,” before getting in the car for practice, qualifying, and the race itself.

The routine shifts when races travel outside of Europe. Drivers normally arrive the week before where there is planned slack in the schedule for races in places like Japan and North America to allow them to adjust to the change in time zones.

“If it's like Australia or in Asia you probably fly out, say the weekend before just to get used to the time zone and the jetlag, and for that medium sim before,” he said.