--- title: "Piastri Needs Winter Reset After Slump, Says Palmer" canonical: "https://readmotorsport.com/2026/09/24/piastri-needs-winter-reset-says-palmer/" type: "post" language: "en-GB" author: "James Wilson" section: "F1 News" published: "2026-09-24T00:48:18Z" modified: "2026-09-24T00:48:18Z" --- # Piastri Needs Winter Reset After Slump, Says Palmer Oscar Piastri is having a hard time in 2026, and few people have said so as plainly as Jolyon Palmer. Speaking on the F1 Nation podcast, the former Renault driver gave a blunt verdict on where things stand for the Australian. The Oscar Piastri Jolyon Palmer assessment lands just as the paddock arrives at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. It makes uncomfortable reading for McLaren fans hoping for a turnaround. ## Piastri Struggles Highlight McLaren Drivers Disparity Palmer’s point is simple. Piastri is no longer matching Lando Norris for pace or consistency, and the gap has grown wide enough to raise real questions about his season. McLaren sit outside this year’s title fight, and Palmer argued that this has let Piastri largely escape the scrutiny a struggling contender would usually face. “Number one, Oscar could be grateful that McLaren is not in the championship fight in a way because otherwise we’d be looking at him in exactly the same way as we’re looking at George. He’s capitulating this season,” Palmer said. That comparison to George Russell’s tough year says a lot. Palmer isn’t suggesting Piastri has fallen apart completely. But he does draw a clear line between the driver who impressed so many in 2025 and the one grinding through this campaign. Norris, by contrast, sits firmly in the top four of the standings, and that gap has become McLaren’s clearest storyline of the year. ## Palmer Points to Low Grip Limitations and Early Career Hype Part of what makes this slump notable is where Piastri came from. He arrived in Formula 1 as an F3 and F2 champion. Last season he showed exactly why so many rated him so highly. “Oscar had one half of a season last year where he looked like a champion, and he drove like a champion, and he was amazing. Bearing in mind, he’s an F3 champion and an F2 champion,” Palmer said. The hype around him a year ago was huge. Plenty of people compared him to Australia’s last serious title hope in the sport. “It felt, this time last year, like the second coming of a great Aussie champion coming through. Could he do what Mark Webber didn’t? And it felt like it was the right thing,” Palmer said. So what has changed? Palmer’s explanation centres on how Piastri handles the car when grip drops away. He says this weakness has become more exposed this year. “Is this where Oscar is at? He’s not as comfortable sliding the car around as Lando. Last year’s cars suited him a little bit more until we went to these low-grip tracks, as Andrea Stella was saying, and we saw his limitations a little bit more in Austin and Mexico and co,” Palmer said. It’s a fine distinction, not a damning one. Piastri thrives when the car feels planted underneath him. He loses a bit of feel once it starts to move around. It isn’t the first time Palmer has offered a sharp read on a driver under pressure. His [commentary on Hamilton and Antonelli](https://readmotorsport.com/2026/08/20/hamilton-ferrari-mistakes-palmer-antonelli-title/) earlier this year carried a similar edge. His full remarks on Piastri are set out in the [Motorsport.com report on Palmer’s analysis](https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/jolyon-palmer-suggests-oscar-piastri-needs-f1-reset-in-blunt-lando-norris-comparison/10858199/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=RSS-F1&utm_term=News&utm_content=www). ## Points Deficit and Spanish GP Deliver Stark Contrast The numbers back up Palmer’s reading. Piastri sits seventh in the drivers’ standings on 120 points, well adrift of Norris, who is fourth on 186. That is a gap of 66 points between two drivers sharing the same car. The Spanish Grand Prix showed how differently their weekends have gone. Norris took pole position and built a solid lead. An ill-timed virtual safety car then wrecked his race. Piastri, meanwhile, could only manage eighth. Same car, same garage, very different outcomes. Contrasts like these make the Oscar Piastri Jolyon Palmer debate feel urgent rather than theoretical. ## Winter Reset Hopes and the Search for Form Piastri heads to Azerbaijan still carrying that eighth place finish from Spain. Palmer doesn’t think a quick fix is coming. His closing remark on the podcast framed the problem as one of built-up pressure rather than a single bad weekend. “He’s just a driver who will be hoping for a run of form, but also maybe for next winter and a bit of a reset right now because every weekend just feels like it’s a real struggle for him,” Palmer said. That reset might arrive at Baku, or it might have to wait until the off season. Either way, the real issue looks like one of feel and adaptation, not raw pace. Grip and setup shape lap time at the highest level. Readers curious how far that kind of engineering detail reaches can find more in our piece on [F1 technology transfer to road cars](https://readmotorsport.com/2026/09/15/from-f1-to-the-road-7-motorsport-technologies-that-changed-performance-cars/). For now, Piastri’s task is simple: find a rhythm before this season slips further away from him.