Oscar Piastri has understood some of his struggles from last weekend’s United States Grand Prix but says McLaren is up against it to retake third in the constructors championship.

Piastri’s upward trajectory hit a brick wall in Austin, where he finished seventh and more than 22s behind teammate Lando Norris despite starting ahead of the Englishman, whom he was ordered to let through in the opening stint.

Team boss Andrea Stella later revealed team orders had been discussed before the race because it was clear Piastri was the slower of the two drivers at the Circuit of the Americas.

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“Definitely for me the pace has been pretty bad,” Piastri admitted after the race, offering no explanation for his struggles.

But ahead of this weekend’s Mexico City Grand Prix, after three days of analysis, Piastri said he was clearer on what went wrong in Austin.

“I think we’ve got some answers for sure,” he said. “Not all of them, but I think we’ve got a pretty good idea of certainly a direction of why things weren’t quite as smooth as we would have hoped.

“A lot of them are things I can keep working on for this weekend. Some will be similar to some of the struggles earlier in the season as well. There’s plenty of races and laps still to go to keep working on that.”

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The Circuit of the Americas is one of Piastri’s weakest venues, and it was one of the set of key weekends last season that saw him tumble from a commanding points lead to third in the championship, where he eventually finished the campaign.

But he has an even worse record in Mexico City, where he’s taken home just six points per race he’s started that — an average finish of seventh.

It’s a track that brings out some of his weaknesses. The thin atmosphere means the cars are much more prone to sliding, something his driving style doesn’t match well with, and it features few meaningful high-speed corners of the sort he’s typically excelled at.

It was here last year where Norris moved ahead of Piastri in pursuit of the world title.

Without a victory in 2026 and without a podium since Miami in May, this is an unlikely place for Piastri to score a big result — but the Australian said he isn’t thinking about a big breakthrough.

“A podium or a win (before the end of the season) would be nice for sure, but I think for me just trying to get on top of some of the struggles we’ve had this year has obviously not been easy.

“For me, just trying to find more answers, keep working on those things, that’s the biggest thing for the rest of the year going into next season.

“Obviously we’re not fighting exactly where we want to be this year, but next year I’m confident that we can be back fighting for both championships.

“I want to learn as much as I can to be prepared for that.”

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‘YOU JUST HAVE TO KEEP FIGHTING’

Though McLaren has already been eliminated from the constructors championship, it set itself the target of beating Ferrari to second in the standings just two rounds ago.

Last weekend it slipped from third to fourth behind Red Bull Racing, which moved ahead with equal points on countback.

Ferrari is 119 points ahead with up to five rounds remaining.

McLaren has been hamstrung by a car that has become increasingly difficult to drive despite both drivers believing there is inherent pace to be unlocked.

Norris, whose championship defence has already been extinguished, said it was a struggle just to set consistent lap times in the MCL40.

“We’re certainly not miles away, but we’re a couple of steps, like we have been really the whole season bar maybe two races,” he said.

“I think the car has good potential, it’s just too difficult to drive, it’s as simple as that.

“The car’s been horrible — difficult to drive — the whole season.

“Other teams have brought a lot more upgrades since and improved a lot more than what we have.

“Not only do we need to make it quicker, we also need to make it a lot more consistent through every type of circuit. That’s by working on just making it an easier car to drive.”

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Though he praised the team for finding gains through the season — “considering we were almost 1.5s off at the beginning of the year, 1s off, the fact we won almost three races is a pretty sizeable achievement in itself” — he said he didn’t expect the cars handling to improve with upgrades due before the end of the season.

“This is just going to add performance; I don’t think you’ll make it any easier,” he said. “Maybe there’s a chance it makes it harder.”

With Red Bull Racing in the ascendancy, having won two of the last three grands prix and having outscored McLaren at the last five weekends on the bounce, recovering third — never mind moving up to second — would appear to be a long shot.

“You just have to keep fighting,” Piastri said. “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.

“There’s a lot of things that can happen. Reliability has been a big topic this year, so there are 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 will hopefully help with that.

“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.”



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