Oscar Piastri pinpoints two ‘specifics’ circuits he must improve at during the 2026 F1 season

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Oscar Piastri is early enough in his Formula 1 career that the missed opportunity for the 2025 campaign doesn’t have to define his time in the sport.

After winning the Dutch Grand Prix, Oscar Piastri was 34 points clear of McLaren teammate Lando Norris in the drivers’ championship.

Max Verstappen had to make up an absurd amount of points in the final 10 race weekends to stand a chance of winning a fifth consecutive championship.

Prove me wrong: Oscar Piastri is the PERFECT CANDIDATE to replace Fernando Alonso at Aston Martin in 2027

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And yet, when the chequered flag flew in Abu Dhabi, Piastri had finished behind both drivers in the standings.

Now, entering his fourth season on the grid, Piastri will be hoping he can continue to improve on his impressive trajectory to go two better than in 2025.

The 24-year-old has already pinpointed two tracks where he knows he needs to do better this season, even if the changing regulations mean that adapting to a brand new driving style could make that improvement more tricky than before.

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Oscar Piastri knows he needs to do better at the United States and Mexico City Grand Prix in 2026

Piastri was asked on The Fast and The Curious where he feels he needs to improve going into 2026 and said: “I mean it’s I think at the moment it’s kind of identifying what things are actually going to transfer from from last year to this year because the cars are so different, the engines and the power units are so different that there’s no point wasting a whole bunch of time on specific things from last year that aren’t even going to apply to this year.

“So, I think the things I wanted to improve were kind of very specific things from certain weekends.

“Austin and Mexico really being the main two from a driving point of view, where things just didn’t click.

“But, there’s no point wasting hours of your life trying to improve on that when it could be completely different this year.

“So, I think those kinds of little things, and then I think just some of the processes we have as a team, some of the decisions and situations we had last year.

“I think we all are working hard to try and improve how we go about those things.”

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How has Oscar Piastri previously performed in Austin and Mexico City?

Piastri has already scored 799 points in his F1 career and could become the winningest Australian driver of all time this season if he matches his victory tally from 2025.

He’s also got six pole positions in his career, but Piastri’s struggles on low-grip tracks have become an obvious weakness in his armoury.

Andrea Stella pointed out that the Circuit of the Americas was low grip before this year’s race, and a crash with Norris in the Sprint Race was followed up by a P5 in the race.

Piastri’s best result at COTA is fifth, the same as at the Mexico City Grand Prix.

Out of all of the circuits where Piastri has taken part in three Grand Prix, he’s scored fewer points in Las Vegas and Melbourne than in Mexico and Austin.

Some caveats need to be taken into account as well, with Piastri disqualified in Las Vegas last year and the treacherous conditions at his home race costing him at last season’s opener.

If Piastri is going to win his first championship, he either needs to drastically improve at the two North American circuits or build up enough of a buffer in the standings that he doesn’t need to be on his A game.