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Oscar Piastri urged to go down ‘rabbit holes’ with McLaren MCL40 Oscar Piastri has been urged to experiment with his MCL40, with Juan Pablo Montoya telling him to “sacrifice” a weekend or three rather than put in 12 “average” races. Piastri was on the back foot from the word go this season as he suffered back-to-back DNS in Australia, where he crashed on the formation lap, and China, where an electrical problem forced him off the grid. Oscar Piastri urged to experiment with McLaren MCL40 setup Want more PlanetF1.com coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for news you can trust. It was a torrid start to the campaign for a driver who is determined to prove he is not McLaren’s number two after losing the championship to Lando Norris last season. Although the Australian racer bounced back with podium finishes in Japan and Miami, he has not stood on the podium in the seven races since. He was close in Hungary, where he led the Grand Prix before contact with Carlos Sainz as he tried to overtake the backmarker gave Norris the tenths that he needed to snatch the lead. The contact had the seemingly unflappable Piastri enraged. Piastri went on to retire with a gearbox failure, while Norris claimed the victory. The gap between the teammates increased to 36 points in Norris’ favour. Montoya has advised the 25-year-old to experiment with the set-up of his McLaren MCL40 to find what works for him, even if it means a few poor weekends. “He needs to understand why Lando’s more comfortable than him, what’s missing and what they need to do,” Montoya told news.com.au. “What is working for Lando isn’t necessarily going to work for Oscar and what Oscar wants out of the car is completely different. “Oscar should go to McLaren and say, ‘Hey, let me experiment, even if we get it completely wrong. Let me go down a couple of rabbit holes’. “They need to get out of the bubble they’re operating in because it’s working for Lando but not working for him. “They need to expand and maybe go a couple of weekends where they struggle. “Who cares? You’ve still got 12 races left, sacrifice two or three for the other nine, instead of having another 12 average races. “When you’re leaving it weekend to weekend, it’s so difficult to go ‘we’re just going to suck this weekend’. You need to figure out what’s missing. “Oscar has a lot of really good people around him. They need to not be afraid of swinging to the fences.” Lando Norris v Oscar Piastri: McLaren F1 2026 scores F1 2026: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between teammates F1 2026: Head-to-head race statistics between teammates The seven-time Grand Prix winner believes Piastri is still struggling with the “hurt” of losing last year’s championship. He was leading the championship by 34 points ahead of Norris and 104 up on Max Verstappen after the Dutch Grand Prix. Nine races later, when the final chequered flag fell in Abu Dhabi, he was third in the standings, where he was 13 points behind Norris and 11 down on Verstappen. “Losing the championship last year really hurt him mentally,” Montoya explained. “It’s a process of getting over it, figuring it out and getting the focus and the energy back on getting the job done. He is bloody good, so I think he will. “It’s such a big thing on the head, the psychology part of it. Losing the championship last year, everyone was talking like it was his, it was in the bag. “When you’re in that position where you look unbeatable and you lose the championship, it’s a hard pill to swallow.” The Colombian cautioned Piastri that he may have to accept that he’ll never be crowned F1 world champion. Instead, he says the Aussie needs to focus on doing the right things on the track race by race. “He might get another but opportunities like that don’t come that often,” Montoya said. “It’s the reality of the sport. He’s done amazing things. Unless your only motivation is to be world champion, the reality of this sport is to be world champion everything has to go your way. You need to be in the best car. “You need to focus on the day-to-day, winning races, focus on practice and maximising everything, then the opportunity might come by itself. “You can’t determine the rest of your career because you finished second or third in the world championship. It sucks that your teammate won but that’s why we go racing.” Want to be the first to know exclusive information from the F1 paddock? Join our broadcast channel on WhatsApp to get the scoop on the latest developments from our team of accredited journalists. You can also subscribe to the PlanetF1 YouTube channel for exclusive features, hear from our paddock journalists with stories from the heart of Formula 1 and much more! Read Next: Oscar Piastri is in danger of following in Mark Webber’s footsteps