Oscar Piastri shrugs off “overhyped” front wing clampdown: “We’re confident”

Oscar Piastri has once again dismissed fears McLaren’s season will be curtailed by the FIA’s flexi-wing clampdown at this weekend’s F1 Spanish Grand Prix, describing the change as “overhyped”.

The big talking point heading into this weekend’s race at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is the FIA’s more stringent tests on the front wing.

Ahead of the 2025 F1 season, the sport’s governing body announced that stricter tests would be introduced for the Spanish GP amid concerns over how much front and rear wings were flexing.

McLaren’s rear wing caught the attention of the F1 paddock following Piastri’s win at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Since then, measures have been taken to monitor aeroelasticity.

A number of drivers have downplayed claims that the change will have a big impact on the pecking order in Spain.

Piastri also feels that McLaren making a small change to their front wing will only have a small impact.

“I think the biggest problem is how overhyped it is,” Piastri said in Barcelona, where Crash.net are present in the paddock.

“We know what’s different. I think everyone will have to change to an extent. I’ve not run the front wing but Lando has already run the front wing before this year. We’re confident that’s not our magic bullet.

“We don’t have a magic bullet. That’s not our main strength.”

F1 title race hots up at McLaren

Following Lando Norris’ win in Monaco, there are now just three points between the McLaren drivers ahead of Sunday’s race.

Piastri has won four of the opening eight races, but Norris hit back in Monte Carlo with a spectacular qualifying lap, setting him up for his first win in the principality.

The Australian anticipates it will be tight with his teammate once again this weekend.

“I hope so. It’s always been tight everywhere we’ve gone,” he added.

“There’s been weekends where I’ve been a bit quicker. There’s been weekends where Lando’s been a bit quicker but they've not necessarily been the weekends where we’ve beaten each other.

“There’s there’s more to it than just being fast, so, I think it’s gonna be, you know, it’s gonna ebb and flow a bit through the whole year, but I mean I’m I’m confident I think we’ve analyzed what went a little bit wrong in Monaco, I mean it still wasn’t a terrible weekend but just not as good as some of the weekends have been this year for me, so, we’ve looked at what we can do a bit better and we’ll try and put that in action.”