McLaren is currently relying on being able to “take advantage of situations around us” as its MCL40 chassis is currently running at a deficit in all facets versus Ferrari and Mercedes, according to Oscar Piastri.
The Woking squad has faced a stern test of its ability to defend both championships from 2025, and on current form it appears that the team and Lando Norris will be handing both trophies over at the end of the season.
Races in Montreal and Monaco exposed the team’s current lack of performance in low-speed conditions. Although Norris had been able to bag a podium in Barcelona, this was very much a function of Kimi Antonelli‘s retirement from late into the race.
After the Barcelona Grand Prix, team principal Andrea Stella agreed that while the team was competitive, its low-speed and medium-speed performances were currently short of the mark.
Piastri says that until the team minimises its shortcomings with its current car it will have to continue to rely on the teams ahead suffering from issues or driver mistakes as it is currently running with “a bit of a deficit everywhere”.
“It’s very up and down, clearly – I think probably a bit more down than it has been up, unfortunately,” Piastri said of the season thus far. “I think there’s been glimpses of good pace, there’s been races where we’ve taken advantage of the situations around us and maximise things.
“There’s definitely been situations where we haven’t, whether it be through mistakes from drivers, whether it be reliability issues, whatever it might be. Yeah, there’s also been plenty of those moments.
Oscar Piastri, McLaren
Photo by: Michael Potts / LAT Images via Getty Images
“I think for us as a team, we know that we’re lacking performance and I think Canada in the race and especially Monaco kind of highlighted where some of our struggles lie, which we’re trying to fix, but we have a bit of a deficit everywhere.
“We don’t really have any clear strengths, but we’re not kind of terribly bad anywhere either. In some ways, that’s good, in some ways, that’s bad.
“To catch Mercedes and we’ll see whether Ferrari maintain their form as well, we need to put some new bits on the car. We need to make it faster and we need to do it quicker than everyone else because at this point in the year, in this point of the regs, everybody’s coming with upgrades quickly. So we know we need to improve.”
Piastri added that he now understood his struggles during the Barcelona race, in which he finished fifth behind Max Verstappen and 35s down on team-mate Norris, and was confident that this would not happen again.
He played down McLaren’s hopes of a performance in Austria on pure pace, citing Ferrari’s Barcelona updates and the incoming Red Bull package as two mitigating factors.
“I think on a personal level, yes, I’ve got a good understanding within a lot of homework as to why the race in Barcelona was such a struggle for me. I think we’ve got a good idea why and a good plan on how to not repeat that,” he said.
“I think for us as a team here, Ferrari took a good step forward in Barcelona. Mercedes is still the benchmark as well. And I’m hearing along the grapevine that Red Bull have got some big things as well. So it’s not going to be easy for us.
“Yes, it has been [good] in the past, but there’s no illusion for us that we’re suddenly going to be amazing here. And the team to beat, we’re definitely not going to be that.
“Hopefully we can get close and kind of be in the position that we have been in at certain points where we can capitalise on dramas for others.
“But I think to be able to do it on merit or pure pace is going to be a bit of a stretch, but I’d like to be happily surprised.”
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