Picture Credits McLaren F1 Team
Two races in and McLaren’s Australian rookie, Oscar Piastri, is already showing that he looks capable of matching the pace of his teammate Lando Norris. Many wondered how Piastri would fare against his popular teammate after much-loved fellow Aussie Daniel Ricciardo had seemingly struggled. So far, the answer seems to be that Piastri is up for the challenge and may even come out on top.
Oscar Piastri’s F1 debut in Bahrain lasted 15 laps before an electrical issue forced an early retirement for McLaren’s Australian F1 driver. During the opening lap of Sunday’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, there was a real chance the Aussie’s race would be cut short again as Piastri made contact with Pierre Gasly’s Alpine at the exit of Turn 2 on the opening lap. The incident resulted in a damaged right side of Piastri’s wing which would then break away from his car further down the road and ironically be run over by his McLaren teammate Lando Norris. The race had promised so much for Piastri after starting P8 but in the end was a story of what might have been.
With regard to the opening lap incident (which resulted in Piastri pitting a lap after it) the Aussie was asked post-race by media as to where he felt the blame lay. His response was refreshing in that it showed he was not keen to point fingers and instead chose to focus on the positives.
“I haven’t seen it to be honest, but I don’t think it was anyone’s fault. You know, just a tight Turn 2 here and the contact was really small. I barely even felt it and yeah, I was quite surprised to have damage after it but anyway it happens. I’ll try and see if I could have done anything different but yeah the rest of the race was some positives in place and nice to get to the end today.” said Piastri.
An obvious positive was Oscar Piastri’s tyre management as his second lap pitstop was the only one he made during Sunday’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. McLaren’s rookie ran the hard compound for 49 laps and still kept a strong pace to cross the line P15 out of the 18 classified finishers.
“Obviously, it wasn’t the ideal race with lap one, but I think after that to do 49 laps on the hard was a pretty good effort.” Said Piastri when reflecting post-race on his tyre management. “They seemed to hang on very well at the end which was good and a bit of experience with overtaking. Small wheel to wheel battles which was nice, a bit of entertainment at the end so yeah honestly not the race we’re looking for but still some positives for me and some more experience.”
The audio from Oscar Piastri’s team radio also showed how impressed his team were with his outing in Jeddah this past Sunday as his race engineer told him “The pace was good, tyre management was good, everything was good. In Melbourne, we’ll try and put it all together.”
McLaren arrived in Jeddah ‘pointless’ in the F1 Constructors’ Championship and departed Saudi Arabia still yet to score. A lot of expectation is always on the Woking-based manufacturer, but Piastri is keen to ensure no extra pressure comes from him as he told media during the weekend in Jeddah:
“I think, you know, we’re all working in the same direction to try and move forward. Obviously, Bahrain wasn’t the weekend that we all wanted but I’ve been back in the MTC a few times, spent quite a lot of time on the sim, you know, trying to help where I can. I think the team has a very clear idea where we need to improve and we’re very aware of that, so I don’t think I need to really add any more pressure on them.”
Oscar Piastri will no doubt have plenty of pressure on himself in just over a week as the next Grand Prix on the F1 calendar is his home race – the Australian Grand Prix. Looking ahead to Melbourne, when Piastri was asked if he was excited for the upcoming race, he told journalists: “Yeah definitely, it’ll be nice to go home have the home crowd there. So, first home race I’m sure it will be a cool experience and yeah you know hopefully we can take our qualifying pace with us to Melbourne that’d be nice and obviously have a hopefully cleaner race on Sunday.”
McLaren are aware that their 2023 challenger – the MCL60 – has many issues to resolve but the form of Oscar Piastri will certainly fill the team with confidence. Not to mention all the papaya fans who continue to believe in McLaren.
