Oscar Piastri came close to capturing his first victory of the 2026 Formula 1 season, but lost the lead to Lando Norris during the final pit window and, to make matters worse, saw his McLaren’s gearbox give out on lap 56 of Sunday’s (26) Hungarian GP. The Australian emphasized that it was a tough day and admitted he was upset that the team pitted car #4 immediately following his incident with Carlos Sainz.
Piastri lined up second on the grid, but seized the lead right off the line. From there, he appeared to have the race under control, despite holding a slim margin over Norris. The situation turned on lap 39: Sainz made contact with the #81 car, causing Piastri to lose significant time. Sensing the moment, McLaren pitted Lando, who inherited the lead when Oscar made his own stop.
The Australian then suffered a gearbox failure on lap 56, forcing him into retirement. Refelcting on the day, Piastri singled out the start as the highlight of his race, while noting that his pace on the hard compound was lacking.
“It was certainly the highlight of my race, and from there things went from bad to worse. There are a lot of things to analyze. First of all, the pace on the hard tires was terrible—obviously, being taken off the track by a lapped car is never something you expect, but I was proven wrong. Then came the gearbox issue, so it wasn’t one of the easiest days,” Piastri told Sky Sports after the race.
Oscar also addressed the second pit stop and admitted his frustration over McLaren pitting Norris right after the incident with Sainz.
“I got hit by Carlos and, at that moment, I hoped that maybe they wouldn’t bring Lando in for his pit stop because of that incident, just to at least give me the chance to stay in the lead—though I suppose that wasn’t very reasonable,” he acknowledged.
“I was just very upset at that point with what had happened. I think the timing of my pit stop was fine—we wanted to cover off Lewis [Hamilton] and that’s what we needed to do,” he concluded.
Formula 1 now enters the summer break. The 2026 season resumes from August 21–23 with the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort.
