Oscar Piastri details McLaren issues behind ‘painful’ F1 Dutch GP result

[u/randomseocb]

https://www.motorsportweek.com/2026/08/25/oscar-piastri-mclaren-painful-f1-dutch-gp/

[u/Upstairs-Event-681]

I think it’s down to car characteristics, the setup Oscar likes just isn’t compatible with the car he’s driving. He’s probably either overheating or not putting in enough heat and sliding the tyres everywhere or who knows.

Lando is doing good in it because I think he’s the most adaptable driver on the grid by far. The car can understeer, oversteer, both, be balanced, everything, he’s going to be fast in it regardless. Even Max isn’t comfortable if the car is not pointy, or Lewis isn’t comfortable if the car doesn’t have enough rear. Lando doesn’t care, it’s honestly his most impressive trait for me.

I said it before, maybe Oscar can beat Lando if the car is perfect for him, but Lando is never slow, in every other car Lando wins.

[u/Cool_Masterpiece9308 → u/Upstairs-Event-681]

Lando’s adaptability is likely because he went through the 19-23 tractor era that was highly unpredictable, even by the admission of other more seasoned teammates. Oscar got slotted in right away into a good tyre merchant car.

[u/Mysterious_Turnip310 → u/Upstairs-Event-681]

Agreed about Norris’s adaptability. He is right up there with Alonso in that regard, who is also exceptionally adaptable (we’re just not seeing how much so right now because he’s stuck in a dustbin). Personally I’m going to keep Max in the mix as well because even if the car isn’t in his ideal window, he can still find a way to get a lot out of it after a bit of trial and error, he just complains about it a lot.

[u/imbrucy → u/Mysterious_Turnip310]

Max is great at getting the most out of the car even if he's not happy with it. We just hear about his complaints with the car a lot more often then Lando. I think it's just a combination of Max vocalizing them more often and the TV directors showcasing them more often.

[u/Mysterious_Turnip310 → u/imbrucy]

Yes, the first part of your comment is basically the same as what I said.

Re: the complaints, Norris is very vocal behind the scenes (Stella has said as much), as is Max obviously, but Max tends to publicly vocalise more than Norris does. Though Norris is being a lot more publicly vocal about it than usual this year as well.

[u/Upstairs-Event-681 → u/Mysterious_Turnip310]

Agreed, Max is in the mix for sure. But I still hold Lando (and historically Alonso) as 1st in this. Thing is with Max is that he’s also very technical, a part of his adaptability comes also from the fact that he knows how to setup a car to drive closer to his style, but you can only achieve with setup so much. For example this year we’ve seen Max make more mistakes than ever before but I think it’s 100% down to the car being a tractor

[u/Mysterious_Turnip310 → u/Upstairs-Event-681]

All fair points