Oscar Piastri has outlined where McLaren needs to improve following his fourth-place finish at the Formula 1 Austrian Grand Prix.
Piastri enjoyed an uneventful race in Austria, as mechanical gremlins stayed away en-route to fourth place at the Red Bull Ring.
However, given that he finished 21 seconds behind Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes, the gap to the frontrunners remains an issue for the Australian and McLaren.
The race in Austria did indicate a step forward, as he and the team beat Ferrari on overall pace, a shock following Lewis Hamilton’s emphatic win in Barcelona.
Piastri confirmed he and McLaren had extracted the maximum from the car in Austria, also highlighting applying lessons learnt from a challenging few races.
“It felt like a good race, and we were able to execute well and apply some things I’ve learned over the last few weeks,” Piastri said.
“The pace was stronger than we expected, and to be able to successfully challenge and beat Ferrari was a definite positive for the team.
“I feel like we got the absolute most out of the car and that’s a good feeling.”
Oscar Piastri details McLaren’s struggles
However, Piastri tempered his success by confirming McLaren still has a mountain to climb to challenge for wins and podiums frequently in 2026.
He outlined the main issue: the MCL40 is still lacking performance across the board, citing a lack of grip as a secondary cause.
“However, we still need to find more pace if we want to be up there challenging the top three consistently,” he said.
“We don’t have a specific area of weakness; we just need more overall performance and grip to take that next step.
We’ll keep chipping away at it, and we’ll focus on carrying this momentum into the next few races’,
The result leaves McLaren fourth in the Constructors’ Championship, and while the margin to the teams above them remains significant, the Austrian performance offered genuine encouragement that the MCL40’s development trajectory is pointing in the right direction.
Piastri’s teammate Lando Norris had a more difficult afternoon in Spielberg, which only underlines how fine the margins are at McLaren’s current level. When everything clicks for Piastri — clean air, a tidy strategy, and a car behaving itself — fourth place is the ceiling. That needs to change if the Woking outfit is to mount any kind of title challenge in the second half of the season.
For Piastri personally, Austria was a reminder of his ability to manage a race weekend with clinical efficiency — something that has become a quiet hallmark of his still-young Formula 1 career. The pace may not always be there, but the execution increasingly is.
The question now is whether McLaren can give him the machinery to convert that composure into something more tangible before the season slips away.
McLaren may have a new livery for Silverstone, but it will need to find significant lap time to challenge for victory at its home circuit.