Piastri confident after finding “pretty clear answers” for Barcelona struggle

Oscar Piastri says McLaren has found “evidence” explaining part of his Barcelona struggles, with the team now “confident” to be on the front foot for the Sprint weekend at the Austrian Grand Prix after “snowballing” in Spain.

Despite running in the same car his teammate came close to claiming victory in, a P7 finish was all Piastri could rummage up after a difficult weekend from his side of the garage in Spain.

Now, heading into the Austrian Grand Prix Sprint weekend, the McLaren driver’s prospects are looking much more positive with the team ironing out their concerns in-between the first two of three races in the triple header. 

In the team’s post-Spanish Grand Prix debrief, Piastri confirmed that minor setup issues led to a snowballing of wrong decisions in attempts to combat the drop in pace, decisions that have now been corrected for the Spielberg outing.

“Yeah, there was definitely some things on the cast set-up that yeah, certainly caused some problems,” Piastri said.

“I think, you know, some things were not major but had let’s say much bigger consequences than maybe we thought at the time. 

“So I think there’s definitely a lot of evidence to support why I struggled a bit more. 

“Definitely a couple of things in terms of driving as well, but yeah, I think we’ve got some pretty clear answers.”

“I haven’t been back in the sim, but yeah, just talking and looking through the offline simulations, let’s say, of some of the effects of certain things, which then led to other decisions.

“You can snowball pretty quickly in certain situations like that to certainly go on top of some of the decisions we made and I guess some of the consequences of them.”

This weekend takes shape as the third of six Sprint weekends on the 2024 Formula 1 calendar, with Piastri no stranger to success under this format. 

The Australian sees the one individual practice session as an advantage as opposed to a hindrance, with the MCL38 normally performing to a higher standard from the get-go.

“I think Barcelona aside, I think I’ve been very comfortable with the car from the first lap of practice,” he said.

“I think we should be pretty confident that we can hit the ground running. 

“Last weekend was maybe a bit of a reminder that it’s not always easy to achieve that, but I think we should be confident that we’ll be strong out the blocks.”

This weekend McLaren will be hopeful of having both cars in the mix to fight Red Bull, still not underestimating the dominance the home team has in hand despite the Woking-based team’s recent boost in performance.

Piastri admits that it won’t be an easy feat to challenge the reigning World Champions, saying that it will be “tough to beat them” without a little bit of luck on their side. 

“I don’t think we ever underestimated how strong they are operationally.

“I think their pitstops have always been probably the best in the paddock, we’ve got the world record, but they’ve always consistently been incredibly strong on that. 

“Their strategy, they’ve always been very strong on that. 

“We knew that even if we had a car as quick as them, it was going to be tough to beat them, which is proving to be the case I guess. 

“Maybe some people underestimated just how strong they are everywhere, but we certainly didn’t.”

“The spirit’s always been incredibly strong and I think last year when we went from trying to scrape into the points to getting on the podium, not a massive amount changed. 

“I think we were always hungry to try and get back to the front and I think now that we’re there the hunger to really get to the top is probably even greater, I would say.

After having a taste of victory, McLaren’s drive to “replicate that as often as they can” is as strong as ever, with the Sprint weekend posing double the opportunity for success in Austria. 

“We’re certainly not happy finishing second or third, we want to be winning,” Piastri said.

“I think the factory and everyone involved in the team is pushing as hard as they can to try and make that a reality.”

“So yeah, I think we’re all pretty confident that we’ve gotten on top of it and looking forward to starting on the front foot this weekend, hopefully.”

Image: Steven Tee / LAT Images

2024 Austrian Grand Prix Schedule:

Friday, June 28th

FP1: 20:30-21:30

Saturday, June 29th

Sprint Qualifying: 00:30-01:14

Sprint Race: 20:00-21:30

Sunday, June 30th

Qualifying: 00:00-01:00

Race: 23:00

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