Deployment fears raised for wet Miami F1 race: 'It's in a computer's hands'

McLaren's Oscar Piastri has raised concerns about power delivery being "in a computer's hands" ahead of what is expected to be a wet Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix.

Very little wet running has been done with the 2026 cars, with most on the grid yet to test their machinery in rain conditions.

Oscar Piastri had some energy deployment issues in Q1, which saw him just scrape through to the second session in 16th. He was then fourth in Q2, before securing seventh on the final grid.

The Australian acknowledged that a repeat of those deployment issues in the wet, with power chiming in unexpectedly, would be difficult to deal with.

“It's going to be interesting one way or another,” he said.

“We're going to have to do our homework, and we didn't have the power unit really do what we expected today in the dry, so I really don't want that to happen in the rain.

“So we'll make sure we do our homework, and be as prepared as we can. But it's obviously going to be a voyage into the unknown for everybody. And when it rains here, normally it's pretty torrential. So it could be an interesting day."

Expanding on the deployment theme, he said: “It’s going to be tough, but I think in terms of driving the car, it’s going to be not that different to what I've had before. It's just going to be what happens with the power unit? How do you get power?

“Where you get power is in a computer's hands, so it's just making sure that that does roughly what we expect, because obviously the margin for error when it's wet is significantly lower."

Piastri acknowledged that it had been a difficult main qualifying compared to Friday’s sprint session, in which he finished second to team-mate Lando Norris.

“We tried to change a few things with our deployment, and it didn’t quite do what we hoped,” he said when asked by Crash.net about his afternoon.

“And then we were trying to undo that, basically. Q2 looked okay, and then Q3 the laps were both pretty scruffy, but the second one as well had a massive super clip in the middle of Turn 7, which not really what you want for the first time in the weekend in Q3.

“So just a messy session from a lot of different angles, and with these cars – especially on a track like this, where you know you've really got to put the car in the perfect place and drive it pretty much perfectly to get it to work – when you're not in that rhythm, it makes life very tough.”

Piastri agreed that McLaren's Miami upgrade package had improved the car compared to the last race Suzuka, where he was already particularly strong.

“It’s definitely a step better,” he said. “I think this circuit is obviously completely different to Suzuka, both in layout, tarmac, especially temperature. So I think what you kind of need to do to get the most out of the car is very different here to Suzuka.

“I think it is better. It's taken a little bit of getting used to, I would say, just to get the most out of it. But I think yesterday we showed we hit the ground running pretty well, and today wasn't the best of sessions from us as a team.”

He added: “I think everyone else maximised what they had a lot more. For us, it was a big surprise to not see Mercedes be quick yesterday and this morning [in the sprint]. And seeing Kimi on pole, by that much, is more what we expected.

“I think even for Max [Verstappen] and Charles [Leclerc], I think they probably just showed a bit more of what they had. And that's a bit more of the real picture."