Oscar Piastri believes McLaren is still on the backfoot compared to title-favourites Mercedes.

Oscar Piastri has warned that McLaren remains on the back foot in the ongoing title fight, with Mercedes still looking like the class of the field as the season enters a critical early phase. The Australian driver believes that his team cannot yet win races purely on merit, but he also insists that McLaren is not light-years away from closing the gap to the championship contenders.

After five races, McLaren sits third in the constructors’ standings, trailing Mercedes by 113 points and Ferrari by 41. The numbers reflect a season that has started with promise but also with harsh reality checks. The team has been far from flawless, suffering three Did Not Starts from 16 possible opportunities, including Sprint events. In Canada, McLaren endured a particularly bruising weekend. Both Piastri and teammate Lando Norris started from the front of the field on intermediate tyres as the track edged toward drying conditions, but the race quickly exposed vulnerabilities. Norris retired with a gearbox issue, while Piastri was penalized 10 seconds for a collision with Alex Albon, finishing 11th after a challenging day.

The recent upgrades have offered a glimmer of optimism. McLaren rolled out a substantial update package for both the Miami and Canadian Grands Prix, signaling a serious commitment to restoring competitiveness and recapturing the momentum that once defined their early-season pace. Piastri has spoken about the potential these upgrades hold for future races, emphasizing that the team must translate theoretical gains into tangible on-track performance when it matters most, in the race itself rather than in practice or qualifying sessions alone.

Reflecting on the Canadian weekend, Piastri described it as a weekend with multiple positive takeaways, even if the results did not fully reflect the progress made. He noted improvements in several aspects of the car’s behavior and performance relative to the Miami weekend, suggesting that McLaren is moving in the right direction. However, he tempered his optimism with a realistic acknowledgment that there is still a long way to go before the team can regularly challenge the race-winning pace of the top teams.

Piastri’s assessment centers on three core objectives: extracting more speed from the chassis, optimizing the power unit’s potential, and improving strategic execution at the most crucial moments. He explained that making the car quicker is a multi-faceted task that requires a combination of mechanical setup choices, aerodynamic balance, and engine performance. The Australian stressed that there is no single silver bullet that will suddenly push McLaren onto the podium regularly; rather, a series of incremental gains must come together across weekends to convert qualifying potential into race results.

In terms of race strategy and in-race decision-making, Piastri indicated that McLaren must maximize track position whenever possible. He suggested that the team is in a position where holding a strong starting place, managing tyre life, and leveraging pit-stop timing could be differentiators in future events. The complexity of the sport means that even small tweaks to strategy can have outsized effects on outcomes, particularly when facing an environment where Mercedes and Ferrari have demonstrated superior outright pace and consistency.

Looking ahead, Piastri remains encouraged by the direction of McLaren’s development program. He believes the upgrades deployed so far are not cosmetic changes but substantive steps toward closing the performance gap. The driver is confident that with continued development and further refinement, McLaren can mount a credible challenge in upcoming races and gradually erode the advantage currently enjoyed by Mercedes.

Nevertheless, Piastri’s candid comments also serve as a reminder of the magnitude of the challenge facing McLaren. Mercedes has established itself as the benchmark for efficiency, speed, and reliability this season, and any realistic improvement for McLaren must be measured against that high standard. The Australian is clear that the team cannot simply wait for a sudden breakthrough; instead, they must actively chase performance through a disciplined, data-driven approach that leverages every opportunity to learn, iterate, and optimize.

In speaking to media outlets, including F1 REPORTERS, Piastri outlined a pragmatic plan for the rest of the season. He underscored the importance of analyzing the weekend as a whole—from setup choices made by engineers to pace demonstrated in various track conditions—and translating those insights into concrete sporting gains. The driver’s message is that while McLaren is not yet in a position to win races on merit, the path toward doing so is clear: maintain a relentless focus on development, extract maximum performance from the car on race weekends, and execute strategies with precision when the grid is split into clear operational windows.

The broader context remains one of intense competition at the top of the sport. With Verstappen and Red Bull continuing their strong form, and Mercedes’ consistent performance level, McLaren faces a high-stakes balancing act: push for rapid improvement while avoiding overextension that could compromise reliability or financial sustainability. For Piastri, the season thus far has been a learning curve, a period of adjustment as he and the team recalibrate their approach in order to claw back ground. His comments reflect a measured confidence that, even if the car isn’t yet capable of winning on merit, the groundwork has been laid for a meaningful comeback.

As McLaren continues to chase consistency and performance, the team’s engineers, strategists, and drivers will be scrutinized closely by fans and analysts alike. The aim is to convert the upgrades into sustained race pace, to convert near-misses into podiums, and to turn the initial momentum into a longer-term trajectory that could reestablish McLaren among the sport’s most competitive outfits. The next few races will reveal whether the improvements in Canada and Miami can be translated into a genuine acceleration in form, or whether Mercedes and Ferrari will continue to set the pace that McLaren has yet to match.