Piastri says Silverstone exposed McLaren weakness

Oscar Piastri says Silverstone did not create McLaren’s problems so much as expose them, with the McLaren driver describing the British Grand Prix as the weekend that showed where the MCL40 falls away when conditions turn unstable.

“The conditions at Silverstone have definitely exposed where we are weak,” Piastri told media including RacingNews365, after McLaren emerged as only the fourth-best team across the weekend behind Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull. He pointed to Silverstone’s old RAF airbase setting and the strong, gusty wind that comes with it, saying those conditions can push the car “outside of our comfort zone.”

That mattered because, in Piastri’s view, McLaren’s pace is still too dependent on a narrow operating window. “When the grip is good, when things are consistent, we can be in or close to the fight,” he said. “When things look consistent, we look okay and mask some of our issues.” At Silverstone, though, that cover disappeared. “The conditions were very tough, and there is nowhere to hide, so it is not a huge surprise we struggled and were so far off.”

Piastri said the problem is broader than one difficult weekend. He traced the same pattern to Canada and Monaco, where McLaren also suffered when tyre temperatures were difficult to manage. Wind has been another trigger, he said, along with any situation that moves the car even slightly beyond its ideal range. “We’ve got some clear areas we want to work on, but at the moment, we clearly seem to struggle when things are a bit more difficult,” he said.

Silverstone made that sensitivity obvious in the car’s behavior and in Piastri’s own qualifying. He described the weekend as “on a knife-edge” and suffered a high-speed spin through Becketts and Chapel as the changing conditions exposed the limits of the package.

That leaves Spa-Francorchamps looking like another stern test. Piastri said Belgium could be difficult because stable weather is rare there and rain is possible, which underlines McLaren’s immediate task of making the MCL40 competitive when wind, grip and temperature stop behaving predictably.