Piastri, McLaren Strategy Leaves Him Sixth in Malaysia
NXTbets Pro | Published On: October 5, 2026
Piastri’s tire call
Oscar Piastri finished sixth at the Malaysia Grand Prix at Sepang after McLaren made the wrong tire choice for the rain-delayed start. He began on medium tires, then switched to intermediates on lap one, and the early change sent him back through the field. The Australian spent the first part of the race recovering from that loss of track position, trying to rebuild a result that slipped away before the field had settled into race rhythm. He found a better footing later when he made a second stop for hard tires under the first Safety Car. That move steadied his afternoon and gave him a path back into the points picture, even if the damage from the opening laps had already set the ceiling for his result. Piastri also had a close call in the late Safety Car phase when he narrowly avoided contact with teammate Lando Norris. It was a tense moment in a race that already demanded constant tire management and rapid calls from the pit wall. Piastri did not hide his view of the day afterward. He said McLaren were not quick enough to challenge their rivals and that the team was in a similar pace bracket with Ferrari rather than fighting for race wins. He also said the team needed to improve. Piastri said Red Bull were “incredibly fast” in Malaysia, a blunt assessment that matched the gap McLaren faced across the race.
McLaren’s race pace
Andrea Stella said McLaren left Malaysia with a car that was only fourth-best in performance, and that assessment framed the limits of the result as much as the tire call did. Stella said even perfect decisions would not have produced a better result than Piastri’s sixth-place finish. That view put the strategy error in context. McLaren gave away ground at the start, but the race itself also showed the team did not have the speed to turn cleaner calls into a front-running result. The opening laps exposed the problem first. The medium-to-intermediate switch on lap one created traffic and position loss. The later move to hard tires under the first Safety Car helped stabilize the run, but it did not change the overall shape of the race. McLaren could recover some ground. It could not unlock the pace needed to climb into the fight at the sharp end. That left the team measuring its afternoon against the cars ahead rather than the podium. Piastri’s remarks lined up with Stella’s reading of the performance. Both pointed to a car that lacked enough pace to attack Red Bull and was operating closer to Ferrari than to the winners’ pace. The combination of the wrong tire choice, the rain-delay setup and the car’s level of speed left McLaren with a limited hand. The team got one driver back to sixth and the other into the lower points. It still left Malaysia as a race where McLaren learned more about its shortcomings than it did about its ceiling.
Norris’s rebound
Lando Norris recovered to ninth after an early loss on dry tires, giving McLaren a second finish inside the points even on a difficult day. His recovery came with its own pressure. Norris faced a post-race FIA investigation, adding another layer to a race that already demanded quick reactions to changing conditions. He also gave a clear read on McLaren’s limitation, saying the team’s straight-line speed was costing him about two tenths per lap. That detail matched the broader picture from both side of the garage. Piastri said the team lacked the pace to fight for wins. Stella called the car the fourth-best machine in the field. Norris’s comments sharpened the issue further by pointing to a specific weakness that showed up over and over again on track. Straight-line speed matters in Malaysia, and Norris believed McLaren were paying for that deficit every lap. His afternoon started badly with an early loss on dry tires, and he spent the rest of the race clawing back to a result that reflected resilience more than front-running speed. The final tally for McLaren was mixed. Piastri salvaged sixth after a messy start and a smarter second stop. Norris brought home ninth after his own early setback. The results kept the team inside the points, but the day also underlined the gap McLaren still has to close if it wants to challenge at the front on a cleaner weekend.
