McLaren’s driver duo, Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, rolled into Bahrain for testing, but things didn’t exactly click for them, especially for Piastri. While Norris seemed to find his rhythm a bit quicker, Piastri struggled with the car, especially when it came to braking and getting back on the throttle.

Missing out on last year’s title to his own teammate stung. Now, Piastri’s locked in on a comeback. He’s heading into his fourth season in Formula 1, and he’s already seen just about everything, fighting at the back, clawing his way up, and even battling for wins.

Some changes are happening behind the scenes, too. Mark Webber, who’s been a familiar face in Piastri’s corner, is stepping back a little. Apparently, Piastri wants to keep things calm in his camp: less drama, more focus.

But none of that matters if the results aren’t there. And right now, he’s got a real fight on his hands if he wants to keep pace with Norris.

At the Bahrain test, Piastri looked like he was wrestling the McLaren MCL40 more than Norris was. Reports say both drivers had their own headaches with the new car, but Piastri’s issues stood out. The car just didn’t want to behave for him, especially under braking, with the front wheels locking up at turn ten and the rear tyres snapping out at high speed. It was messy.

For a guy with nine Grand Prix wins, consistency was the big problem. Sometimes Piastri had to run wider lines than usual; sometimes he’d be fighting the car as it oversteered. It just wasn’t clicking.

Ever since last season’s title loss, people have been watching him. They want to see if the 24-year-old can bounce back. He knows he needs to adapt to the new rules, but he’s also pinpointed a couple of tracks, Mexico City and Austin, where he really needs to step up. Last year, those races went badly for him, and that slump played a big part in missing the title.

And then there’s all the talk about his future. After last year’s tense battle inside McLaren, rumours started swirling that Piastri might be looking elsewhere. Even after the off-season, those rumours haven’t faded.

A lot of folks see him as the perfect replacement for Fernando Alonso at Aston Martin if Alonso decides to retire. Alonso hinted that 2026 might be his last year, but with him, you never really know.

Fernando Alonso gets where Lance Stroll is coming from. When Stroll said Aston Martin needs to find four seconds with the AMR26, he wasn’t just throwing out numbers; there’s a real gap to close.

But Alonso looks at it a little differently. He thinks there’s still a lot of time to be found out on track, especially as drivers get used to these radically different F1 2026 cars. Aston Martin’s not exactly starting the season in an ideal spot, with the Australian Grand Prix coming up fast and the team still working to catch up.

Right now, everyone’s watching Aston Martin. You can’t blame them. Adrian Newey is in charge of car design, Honda’s coming in with a new works engine, and the team’s new factory and wind tunnel are finally part of the picture. On paper, they’ve got what they need to take a real shot at the championship down the line.

But as Bernie Collins, Aston Martin’s former strategy chief, said, this first season might be rough. They’re still putting all the pieces together.

Testing hasn’t exactly gone to plan, either. They didn’t light up the timing sheets in Bahrain, and things started slowly in Barcelona, with just 54 laps completed.

When Bahrain testing kicked off, Stroll only managed 36 laps on day one and said the team needs to find four seconds. “I don’t think it falls from the sky,” he admitted.

Alonso was asked about all this after the session.

Stroll finished his first day with a 1:39.883, and by the end of testing, he’d shaved it down to 1:38.165. Alonso’s best was a 1:38.248 on the second day.

When people asked Alonso how far behind Aston Martin really is, he shrugged. “Hard to say. Lance said four-and-a-half seconds because that’s how far off we were in Barcelona, and it was about the same in the first two days in Bahrain. So, yeah, there’s a trend, but I don’t really know. Yesterday, I made a mistake in Turn 4, but I still improved by eight tenths by the end of the lap. That shows how many mistakes we’re making every lap right now.

“Sometimes, just changing one setting swings the lap time by eight-tenths up or down. It’s not like we need to find just two tenths. If we optimise things, we could unlock seconds.

“So, let’s see what next week brings. We’re realistic; we won’t be the fastest in Melbourne. We started slow, and we’re still behind, but it’s tough to say exactly where we’ll end up.”

Aston Martin, along with the other nine teams, still has three days of testing left in Bahrain before the season officially kicks off in Australia.

For Alonso, every bit of track time matters right now.

During testing, people pointed out he’d been locking up for three or four laps straight, including a big one. They asked if that’s the kind of challenge he’s facing in the car.

“Yes and no,” he said. “It’s one of the issues, but don’t forget, this is the first time we’ve ever built our own gearbox. First time ever in the history of the team.

“It’s a real challenge, and we need to get better. We need more data. First time building the gearbox, the differential, the clutch – all of it.

“So when we go out, and the downshifts feel rough or whatever, we come back, tweak a few settings, and head back out. Before, we used Mercedes engines and gearboxes, and everything was already sorted. Now, it’s all new for us. That’s why this testing time is so important; we need it to get better.”