The Australian has struggled to recreate the form that carried him into last year’s championship decider, reaching the halfway point of the current campaign sixth in the drivers’ standings on 92 points.
Asked to assess his season before this weekend’s race at the Hungaroring, Piastri admitted both he and McLaren had fallen short of expectations.
“There have been highs and lows, for sure,” Piastri said.
“Probably more lows than highs, unfortunately. For us as a team, it’s obviously not been the first half of the year that we would have liked, especially compared to last year, so hopefully the second half of the year can be better.
“For myself as well, there have been some good moments, some not-so-good moments, and pretty much everything in between.
“I want to be able to improve and be a bit more consistently on top of my game, and hopefully we can do that this weekend and in the second half of the year.”
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Piastri said he believed inconsistency had been a broader issue for McLaren, which has produced flashes of strong pace without establishing itself as a regular contender at the front.
“I think we’ve been quite up and down as a team in general,” he said.
“Suzuka and Miami have definitely been our two strongest races this year.
“In the first part of the year, we were doing a really good job of understanding the rules and understanding what we needed to do, because since the tweaks in Miami, how we need to drive and some of the things we need to do are a lot closer to natural than they were in Suzuka, for example.
“It was quite a weird experience of how you had to drive to go fast, so I think we were doing a very good job of maximising those unnatural things.
“But since then, everyone else has brought a lot of upgrades as well. We’ve brought some, and maybe not all of them have worked as well as we wanted.
“I feel like in those couple of races it was almost the exception to our pace rather than the baseline, so hopefully we can get back to that soon.
“For myself, again, it’s been quite up and down on a personal level as well, so hopefully that can stabilise a bit.”
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Piastri sits 11 points behind teammate Lando Norris in the championship but leads the defending world champion 5-4 in their grand prix head-to-head, with both drivers having claimed two podiums in 2026.
Norris holds a narrow 6-4 advantage in grand prix qualifying, although Piastri has not outqualified his teammate since Monaco.
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella believes Piastri’s natural driving style has contributed to his difficulties adapting to the new Formula 1 machinery, which he said had played more naturally to Norris’ strengths.
Stella explained the new-for-2026 cars reward a more aggressive approach, requiring drivers to accept greater movement rather than attempting to keep the car settled throughout a lap.
“I think the drivers are talking about this generation of cars requiring a certain driving style,” Stella told Sky Sport Germany.
“Basically, if you just try to drive too clean, the lap time doesn’t come. You have to attack the car, you have to accept that the car slides, you have to be extremely active.
“And this is a driving style that comes more normal to Lando than Oscar. We are working with Oscar to make sure that his natural application in terms of driving input takes these characteristics into account.
“We have seen this across some other teammates, like (Kimi) Antonelli and (George) Russell, sometimes (lewis) Hamilton and (Charles) Leclerc.
“So, I think we will figure this out and Oscar will be able to express the full extent of his talent.”
Piastri agreed his McLaren had become particularly difficult to handle during the most recent rounds, although he said the car had been challenging throughout the season.
The 25-year-old explained that McLaren’s focus had gradually shifted from managing its new power unit to understanding the car’s balance and why its behaviour had changed between circuits.
“Not necessarily, no. It’s been tricky to drive the whole year,” he said when asked whether the car had become harder to drive.
“I think maybe at the start of the season we had more to worry about on the power unit side of things, in terms of stuff we could actually control and manage ourselves, and things I could do with my driving style.
“Whereas now, there are still things we need to be careful of with the power unit, but it’s not really in our control as much anymore.
“It’s more purely about what the car is like, what the balance is like, and I think especially the last couple of weekends it’s definitely been a step harder to drive, for whatever reason, whether it’s just the layout, wind or type of tarmac.
“We don’t really know, but hopefully this weekend that becomes a bit easier.”
McLaren arrives in Hungary with a new upgrade package as it attempts to build on an encouraging Belgian Grand Prix, where its race pace proved stronger than expected despite Piastri finishing fifth and Norris seventh.
The team has won the previous two races at the Hungaroring, but Piastri remained cautious about its chances of completing a hat-trick.
“I think we should be a bit more competitive,” he said.
“We’ve got a few upgrades this weekend, so hopefully that puts us a bit closer to being able to fight.
“I think in Spa, certainly in the race, we were probably a bit more competitive than we expected, so that was a good thing.”
Piastri will sit out opening practice on Friday, with reigning Formula 2 champion Leonardo Fornaroli taking control of his McLaren for the session.
Fornaroli previously drove during first practice in Spain, with Piastri praising the Italian’s involvement behind the scenes since joining the team.
“He’s been at a lot of races with us as a team,” Piastri said.
“He’s already done an FP1 in Barcelona. He did a really good job. I think he’s been impressive.
“It’s been good to see, and cool to see how involved he is with all the engineers, and even with me and Lando as drivers.
“He’s always asking questions and wanting to know more, which is an important part of improving and being a good racing driver.
“He’s obviously shown what he can do in the junior categories, and I think he’s been very good to work with at McLaren, so hopefully he does a good job of setting up my car tomorrow.”
First practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix begins at 9″30pm AEST on Friday.
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