Jenson Button and Anthony Davidson agree that the McLaren MCL40 looked “scary to drive” after watching Oscar Piastri during FP3 at the 2026 United States Grand Prix.

Piastri had another difficult hour of practice at the Circuit of the Americas on Saturday as he got ready for qualifying for the United States GP. The 25-year-old only secured P6 in the FP3 timesheets with a fastest lap time of 1:35.531, after he only bagged P7 in FP1 and P8 in FP2.

The Australian’s fastest lap also left him 0.638 seconds adrift of the leading pace that Lewis Hamilton set to end his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc’s dominance from Friday. Hamilton led FP3 at the United States GP on a 1:34.893, after exceeding track limits left Leclerc in P3.

Lewis Hamilton goes fastest in FP3! Last chance to have your say, who are you backing for pole later today?

Piastri was another of the many victims of exceeding track limits during FP3, which cost him a 1:37.938 for running wide at Turn 12 towards the closing stages. He also ran off the circuit at Turn 19 on the same lap after his McLaren MCL40 refused to bite and understeered wide.

Former McLaren F1 driver Button immediately noticed how “nervous” Piastri’s car appeared to be during the latter of those track limit infringements in FP3 at the United States GP while watching his onboard camera. It was also one of the 57 track limit infringements during FP3.

Button said on Sky Sports F1 (24/10, 19:26): “There have been so many off-track [moments] and when I was watching the McLaren of Oscar Piastri, it looked quite nervous, quite twitchy on exits, doesn’t it?”

Melbourne native Piastri was on a used set of soft C4 Pirelli tyres that had already done five laps at the time of his moments that caught Button’s eye. But he had still managed to post a personal-best first sector split time of 25.628s, and was just 0.067s slower than his personal best split time of 37.919s in the second sector, before losing time due to going off the track.

Yet despite Piastri’s marginal gains, former BAR driver Davidson agreed with 2009 champion Button that the McLaren MCL40 looked “scary to drive” during FP3 at the United States GP. McLaren teammate Lando Norris also only managed the eighth-fastest lap with a 1:35.706.

Davidson added: “It actually looks like quite a scary car to drive for high-speed corners like that. You can see why he lost it in [Turns] 8 and 9 a few laps ago, and then why he went so wide in the second-to-last corner, because the car just didn’t want to respond.”

Piastri’s recent form has pleased Button, as the McLaren driver had appeared to be getting to grips with the 2026 F1 regulations through his podium-contending performance in Baku and competitive drives at Sepang and in Singapore. But COTA appears likely to be a difficult venue for both McLaren drivers given their difficult outings in most of the practice sessions.

While Norris finished third as Leclerc set the pace in FP1 at the United States GP this Friday, the reigning F1 champion fell to seventh in FP2 and was only 0.014s faster than Piastri’s lap time in P8. Piastri then led McLaren’s efforts in FP3, as Norris finished 0.813s off the pace in P8. However, Norris’ theoretical fastest lap time would have edged Piastri’s theoretical best.

Norris’ personal-best split times were faster than Piastri’s best efforts in all three sectors in FP3 this Saturday. The Briton set split times of 25.517s in sector one, 37.792s in sector two and 31.865s in sector three, while Piastri set sector times of 25.628s, 37.919s and 31.893s.