Head-to-head · season 2026

OscarPiastriMcLaren vs CarlosSainzWilliams

PIA leads the grade duel 9–4 — across the 13 rounds both were rated in, the car stripped out of the equation.

#8The Index · 8.59

P8DI championship · 74 pts

0best-of-race

P7official · 95 pts

#9The Index · 8.51

P9DI championship · 74 pts

0best-of-race

P15official · 6 pts

Oscar Piastri vs Carlos Sainz: who is driving better in 2026?

the verdict, from the numbers

Oscar Piastri drives for McLaren, Carlos Sainz for Williams, so the raw results are not comparable — everything below has car performance taken out of it. Oscar Piastri leads on The Index, 8.59 to 8.51 — P8 against P9, a gap of 0.08 of a grade point. Round by round, Oscar Piastri has out-driven the other in 9 of 13 races where both were graded. Oscar Piastri's clearest advantage is Attack & Defence — 8.41 against 6.87. Carlos Sainz takes Tyre Management back the other way, 8.04 to 6.56. In the DriverIndex Championship — the same season paid on the official points scale, but on driver merit — Oscar Piastri sits P8 on 74 points to Carlos Sainz's P9 on 74. Officially they stand P7 and P15.

Round by round

the race grade decides each round · click a round for the full analysis

MEL 8.1 7.3 SHA 8.0 9.0 SUZ 9.3 8.3 MIA 8.9 8.5 CAN 6.3 9.1 MON 8.0 8.0 ESP 7.8 8.8 AUT 8.7 8.2 GBR 7.5 7.5 SPA 8.0 7.8 HUN 9.3 7.8 NED 7.7 6.4 ITA 8.5 9.2

The nine dimensions

season averages, mirrored — the longer bar wins the metric

8.68 A Expected Position 8.11

7.92 B Race Pace 8.59

8.14 C Consistency 7.66

8.41 D Attack & Defence 6.87

6.56 E Tyre Management 8.04

7.89 F Qualifying 9.32

9.20 G Race Start 9.04

6.53 H Pit Stop Execution 7.86

8.23 I Cleanliness 7.58

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Race grade, round by round

gaps = not classified