Piastri’s 2026 season raises a difficult question: how much is driver, how much is machine?

Piastri’s frustration with the 2026 cars

Oscar Piastri’s assessment of Formula 1’s 2026 regulations has been unusually blunt. After a deployment glitch cost him two-tenths and four places to McLaren team-mate Lando Norris in Belgian Grand Prix qualifying, Piastri said grids were being “decided by computers behaving or misbehaving” — a situation that, in his view, “sucks”.

The criticism goes to the heart of judging performance under the new regulations. If a difference of only a few tenths can decide several grid positions, separating driver execution from car behaviour becomes more complicated than a conventional qualifying comparison.

McLaren’s counterargument

McLaren technical director Neil Houldey accepted that the Spa problem was beyond Piastri’s control. However, he rejected the broader suggestion that drivers are generally powerless in the 2026 cars.

Houldey argued that the drivers who understand what they need to do — those with the greatest mental capacity behind the wheel — will still be rewarded over a full season. “The drivers who understand what they need to do are the ones who are sharp, the ones who are the best F1 drivers in the world, and the ones who will still be the fastest,” he told Motorsport.com.

His view is that performance has not lost its human element; it has changed shape. “It’s not just about top speed,” Houldey said. Instead, the thought processes taking place in the background can generate lap time.

He also used Spa as evidence that isolated setbacks should not define the wider picture. Although Piastri lost several tenths through a different deployment scheme, he remained with Norris. Houldey believes such factors balance out, with the difference between stronger and weaker drivers still visible across total lap time and race performance.

The Piastri-Norris benchmark

The numbers nevertheless make Piastri’s challenge clear. He trails Norris 11-4 in qualifying across the season, despite matching him over a single lap last year. The average gap remains small, with Norris only 0.075 seconds faster, but the race-pace deficit in Hungary was alarming when both McLarens finally fought for victory.

Piastri has also struggled on low-grip circuits, a weakness that cost him in last year’s title fight. With the 2026 cars carrying around 30% less downforce, his learning curve may be steeper than most.

That makes the verdict more nuanced than the qualifying score suggests. As McLaren’s wider no-blame culture shows, the team can separate responsibility from outcome. For Piastri, the second half of the season will show whether he can turn that difficult adaptation into a sustained response.