The Brazil Grand Prix at Interlagos proved to be one of Oscar Piastri’s most demanding races of the season. Starting from a mixed-up grid following a rain-soaked qualifying, Piastri navigated through a tumultuous race filled with penalties, challenging conditions, and a relentless battle to maintain pace.
Reflecting on the race, Piastri candidly admitted, “Amongst the toughest definitely. I think it was just a tough day from start to end. I think qualifying [was] partly a mistake, partly a bit of a problem, and when you put the two together, it creates a big problem, and then we were still struggling with that a bit in the race.”
Despite a strong start, Piastri and McLaren struggled for speed, particularly after the mid-race red flag, crossing the line in P7. Thanks to his penalty, that became 8th.
He was passed by Max Verstappen early on for P7, and the 23-year-old could not make his way through the pack like the Dutch driver.
He described, “The first part of the first half of the race we seemed very quick. Lando [Norris] was stuck behind George [Russell], I was stuck behind Liam [Lawson].
“I got Liam out of the way, not really in the way I intended, but… the second half of the race after [the] red flag, we were just slow. I think both of us just struggled with pace, and that was a pretty tough 30 laps.”
One of the pressing questions was McLaren’s lack of top speed. Piastri acknowledged this but didn’t attribute it as their main issue.
“Top speed didn’t seem great, but I don’t think that was our biggest problem. We were obviously gaining in the corners with the downforce we had, but clearly not enough,” he noted.
The significant drop in performance post-red flag remained a puzzle for the team.
“The first half of the race we looked really quick, and then the second half, both cars seemed to struggle a lot more, so we need to understand why.”
The choice of rear wing was another talking point, especially given the wet conditions. McLaren changed to a higher downforce rear wing between the Sprint and Grand Prix qualifying, but it did not pay off as they struggled to pass in the Grand Prix.
However, things got even worse after the red flag as they simply did not have the pace to stay with the top 4. Norris finished just over a second behind Charles Leclerc in the end as P6 and P8 represented a poor day.
Piastri explained, “You could argue with qualifying it helped with the actual downforce; in the race, it should have helped in the majority of the lap. The first half of the race, yes, maybe you could argue it was holding us back a bit because we were stuck behind cars, but the second half, we weren’t stuck behind cars—we were just slow.”
A notable incident in the race was Piastri’s collision with Liam Lawson as they battled for P6, for which he took responsibility.
The Australian attempted a late lunge into turn 1 but spun the Kiwi around, and he was hit with a 10-second time penalty.
“I went for a move; I was stuck behind him for a long time [and] didn’t really get far enough alongside. I spoke to him about it; he said he didn’t see me either, which in those conditions is fair enough, but I think it was clearly my mistake. The penalty was deserved.”
The chaotic nature of the race was highlighted by sudden rain and the decisions teams had to make regarding tyre strategy.
“We were in a tough position where we were right at the pit entry; it seemed smart to box and put new tyres on. I don’t think we expected it to rain as much as it did.
“The toughest part of the race was behind the Safety Car trying to stay on the track. I think it exposed a bit of the issue that we have with the wet tyre. Pretty dangerous situation to have cars literally struggling to stay on the track behind the Safety Car.”
Lastly, Piastri commented on defending against Max Verstappen, who stormed from P17 to victory.
“It was tough; I just didn’t have enough pace at the beginning, but he seemed to be pretty much the only one that could actually overtake. I was struggling with the brakes all day; we had a decent problem in qualifying that was the same in the race that certainly wasn’t helping things.”
