31 March 2026 09:00 (UTC)
On Sunday, Andrea hailed Oscar’s performance as “the strongest version of himself since he began competing in Formula 1” - but what did the Australian make of it?
Read time: 5 minutes
As the McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team continues its development journey in this new era of Formula 1, Oscar says the team will be drawing inspiration from a lesson learned during their Championship-winning 2025 campaign.
Starting a race for the first time in 2026, Oscar looked capable of winning the Japanese Grand Prix until an unfortunately timed Safety Car - brought out following a heavy crash for Ollie Bearman - meant eventual victor Kimi Antonelli had a free pit stop and kept the lead.
While it denied him the chance to find out whether he could have held onto first, Oscar went on to secure second place comfortably, while Lando scored a strong P5 despite limited running in Free Practice sessions.
Importantly, it also demonstrated that, with the right steps, Mercedes are catchable this season, a view reinforced by a lesson we learned during our most dominant periods last year.
“We know from last year that even when you have the best car, you still need to operate it at an incredibly high level,” said Oscar, who was voted as Driver of the Day. “I think it’s interesting to see when someone else has the fastest car, that it’s not that straightforward
“I think the fact that I could keep George behind for so long was really encouraging. But we’re under no illusion, we did everything right this weekend, and we still got beaten by 15 seconds, so we’ve got a pretty big gap to fill. I’m confident that we can get there, but yes, we’ve still got some work to do.”
Oscar enjoyed an entertaining back-and-forth with George Russell in the opening laps, launching ahead of both Mercedes at the start and snatching the lead into Turn 1.
After dropping to fourth off the line, Russell recovered from his slow start with relative ease, his pace allowing him to quickly fight back to second, where he began applying pressure on Oscar for the lead.
Heading into the final corner on Lap 8, the Mercedes briefly edged ahead, but Oscar surged back in front into Turn 1, and from there defended superbly, telling the team he believed he could hold on.
He eventually opted to pit on Lap 18, and the Safety Car arrived just over four laps later, allowing Antonelli to pit without relinquishing the lead.
“It would have been really interesting to see what would have happened without [the Safety Car],” said Oscar. “I think I could have kept George behind - just before the stops, we were actually pulling away a little bit again.
“It’s a shame that we never got to see what would have happened. But I think, for us at this point, to be disappointed about finishing second is a pretty good place to be. Massive thanks to the team - I think we did a really good job of executing with what we had. We clearly still need to find a bit of performance, but we took every opportunity we had today.”
On his fight with Ferrari, who we expected to have the edge over us heading into the weekend, Oscar added: “We felt like we could maybe stay ahead of Ferrari. I think, looking back at Qualifying, something clearly went wrong with the deployment for both Charles and Lewis, so the gap I had in Qualifying flattered us a bit.
“So, we thought that would be a challenge, and to be honest, I think Charles and I had very similar pace through most of the race, which was about what we expected.
“I think being able to keep George behind was a big surprise. Once he got back into second, I thought that he was going to come past in about half a lap, and I was going to settle in for second and wait for Kimi to do the same. But the fact that we could be so close to Mercedes and beat one of them, I think that was a much more pleasant surprise.”
More impressive was the fact that Oscar had yet to complete a Grand Prix racing lap in these new cars, following a crash on his reconnaissance laps to the grid in Australia and an electrical fault on his power unit in China.
Despite this, Oscar made a fantastic first Grand Prix start on Sunday and delivered a performance that Andrea Stella described as “the strongest version of himself since he started to compete in Formula 1”.
Asked whether he agreed with Andrea’s assessment, and where this round ranked among his strongest in F1, Oscar said: “I think this weekend was probably one of my best in Formula 1.
“I felt like I hit the ground running in Practice and Qualifying. We did a really good job of getting the car into a window that I was happy with on Friday, and then I felt like I drove well in Qualifying.
“In the race, there wasn’t anything more we could have done. We got a good start, and the pace was good. I felt like I was strategic and smart with how I used Boost and that side of racing, and our strategy was good – we didn’t blink too early.
“Obviously, the Safety Car was a shame, but I think as race weekends go, we couldn’t have done any better than that. So for me, I am very happy with the performance that I put in, and very happy with the performance of the whole team.”
Following a difficult start to F1’s new era, momentum can now build, with encouraging signs that the MCL40 will be capable of challenging at the front this season.
And while we still remain some way behind leaders Mercedes, the team once again demonstrated their ability to maximise performance on any given weekend.
“I think this weekend we did a really good job of optimising what we had,” said Oscar. “We had a really good understanding of what we wanted from the power unit and how we had to dial it in for the Qualifying grip level. And for the race, we had done a lot of work on the starts – I felt they were good throughout the Practice sessions.
“I think the pace was probably a positive surprise. Having clean air probably helped quite a lot at the start, but we did a good job, and I could pull away from George a little bit right before the stops. I think we just nailed everything. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite enough for the win, but I think at the moment a result like today is as good as a win for us.
“Clearly, we’ve still got some performance to find, and Lando’s side of the garage had a pretty interrupted weekend with the issues they had – clearly the start of the season hasn’t been easy for us, so we’ve got a long way to go, but I think we showed that if we get everything as good as we can get it, we can cause a few headaches.”
