Oscar Piastri Exposes His Plans to Exploit 2026 F1 Rules Change

Oscar Piastri has opened up on how he will use the 2026 regulations to leverage better performance on track.

Oscar Piastri Exposes His Plans to Exploit 2026 F1 Rules Change

Oscar Piastri (via Getty)

In Short
  • Oscar Piastri is optimistic about adapting to the new 2026 F1 regulations, focusing on active aerodynamics.
  • He acknowledges that the car's characteristics will differ significantly from the previous ground-effect era.
  • Piastri aims to apply lessons learned from his 2025 season title defeat to achieve better consistency in the upcoming season.

The new regulations introduced for the 2026 season have been received positively, based on initial feedback from the drivers. Many are happy to have moved on from the ground-effect and porpoising era of regulations. Now, Oscar Piastri opens up on how the new feeling of active aerodynamics could create better opportunities while racing on track for him and his rivals.

Oscar Piastri will face a regulation change for the first time in his F1 career following his debut in the 2023 season. The likes of Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc, and many others have already raised skeptical remarks about the performance of the car under the new regulations. Regardless, Piastri is looking forward to the season as McLaren aims to achieve great performance with Mercedes power units.

Now, Oscar Piastri opened up on how he will warm up to such a massive regulation change in his F1 career. Compared to the ground-effect era, the modern era cars might not produce as much downforce as the cars from the 2022-2025 regulations. Now, F1 was returning to more conventional aerodynamics in the car, as the behavior of the cars was now bound to be completely different.

For me, it is quite different to what we had last year with the ground effect cars, You generated a lot of downforce when you were super low to the ground, so it was almost an exponential amount of downforce you gained at high speed, whereas this year, we’re going back to more conventional overbody aero, and the way that behaves is a bit different.

Oscar Piastri said, as reported by RacingNews365.

Further, Oscar Piastri acknowledged that the car’s characteristics would be quite different from those during the ground-effect era. The 24-year-old recalled that the previous cars had a very specific way of driving them, especially into the corners. As such, Piastri hoped that the cars of the modern era were easier to manage in that aspect. The Aussie pointed out that only three days of testing had been concluded, but the fundamentals already seemed much different from the past.

The characteristics of the car are going to be quite different. The ground effect cars were pretty specific in the way you had to drive them, especially on the way into the corners, so maybe there’ll be a bit more leeway to manage that a bit better this year. We’ve obviously only done three days of testing, but there are definitely some pretty fundamental differences in the way the car feels.

Oscar Piastri added.

Oscar Piastri reveals ‘main lesson’ from the 2025 season title defeat

Oscar Piastri lost out on the 2025 driver’s title despite leading in the pecking order for a majority of the season. The Aussie fumbled in performances when it mattered the most and ultimately finished in P3 in the standings. As such, Piastri now hopes to achieve much better and consistent results over the upcoming season and apply all his lessons from the previous year in the right place.

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri (via IMAGO)
Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri (via IMAGO)

Speaking on learnings from the 2025 F1 title defeat, Oscar Piastri asserted that he learnt many lessons from it. Piastri recalled the disastrous end to the second half of the 2025 season and how everything went downhill for him from that point forward. As such, the main lesson for the 24-year-old was to not suffer from similar issues so late into the year and keep his head in the game.

For me, it was more than there were a lot of things which happened in my own season, in the second half that you wouldn’t wish for from a lot of different angles, and that is the main lesson for me.

Oscar Piastri said, as reported by RacingNews365.

The 2026 season is currently a massive unknown for all the teams and drivers. However, that is what makes Formula 1 exciting, as anything can happen from the very beginning of the year. Oscar Piastri has denied being at a disadvantage at McLaren, and hence will give it his all to achieve success under the new regulations.

Read More: Martin Brundle Explains Why Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher Would Excel in Modern F1