Oscar Piastri – Page 3 – Syndication Server

Top-3 placing ‘very special’ for McLaren’s Piastri

Oscar Piastri admits his first top-three result in qualifying at the British Grand Prix is “very special” after a stunning day for McLaren. Qualifying took place in damp conditions but stayed dry enough for slicks throughout and as the track dried …

Oscar Piastri admits his first top-three result in qualifying at the British Grand Prix is “very special” after a stunning day for McLaren.

Qualifying took place in damp conditions but stayed dry enough for slicks throughout and as the track dried further McLaren came on strongly to secure second place with Lando Norris and Piastri in third. Receiving the updated McLaren at Silverstone — one race after Norris — the Australian pulled out the best result of his rookie season to date and says he took his opportunity when it came.

“It’s very special to be in the top three,” Piastri said. “It’s been a couple of years since I’ve been to one of these press conferences so it’s nice to be back. It’s been a great day — even this weekend, we thought we could get into the top 10 at least.

“When the conditions were looking like they were, it’s generally been solid for us previously. I think we went in quietly confident that we could pull off something pretty special and we managed to do it. Happy with the lap I did — wasn’t too much left out there.”

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Given the changing conditions, Piastri says McLaren responds well to such situations and took full advantage with both cars.

“I think we’ve had about four of those (type of) sessions this year. I think we’re all getting good practice with it, but those conditions, most drivers really enjoy them. They’re always tricky to get right — you need to find where the grip is on the track. Sometimes you couldn’t see where the grip was, you just had to pray you were on a dry bit of track.

“I really enjoy those conditions, and so does our car it seems. I think we did a good job, managing on the team side. When it comes to qualifying, nine times out of 10 we do a good job with that. Full credit to the team for the calls today — and the car as well, clearly it was working well today.”

While not getting two carried away by the qualifying showing, Piastri is hopeful that McLaren can at least keep both drivers in the top 10 given the race pace shown by the updated car in Austria last weekend.

“Firstly stay in the points, I think that would be good,” he reckoned. “I think we have to see what our race pace was like. Lando showed last week that we can hang on in the races now to a much better extent. Hopefully we can try do the same tomorrow. Staying in the top three will be tricky with quite a few quick cars behind us, but definitely a solid points score can be on the cards.”

Leclerc gets sprint grid penalty for impeding Piastri

Charles Leclerc has been given a three-place grid penalty for the sprint at the Austrian Grand Prix after impeding Oscar Piastri in the sprint shootout. The Ferrari driver was on the apex at Turn 9 as Piastri approached on a flying lap, with the …

Charles Leclerc has been given a three-place grid penalty for the sprint at the Austrian Grand Prix after impeding Oscar Piastri in the sprint shootout.

The Ferrari driver was on the apex at Turn 9 as Piastri approached on a flying lap, with the McLaren driver having to slow to avoid contact and being eliminated in Q1 of the Saturday morning qualifying session for the sprint. Although a substantial proportion of the blame was attributed to Ferrari for a lack of communication with Leclerc, a grid penalty was handed out that applies only to sprint events.

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“The driver of Car 81 stated that as he approached Turn 9 he saw that Car 16 was traveling slowly and had to brake, reducing his speed by approximately 45 km/h over the previous push lap,” the stewards’ decision read. “This was verified by the stewards referencing the telemetry of Car 81. It was confirmed Car 81 lost approximately 0.5 of a second in that mini- sector (5.3s v 4.8s).

“The driver of Car 16 stated that the last call he had from his team was when he was approaching Turn 4 (‘Piastri six seconds’) and that he saw Car 81 in his mirrors as he was in Turn 8 and Car 81 was in Turn 7.

“The Team Representative of Car 16 stated that the team ‘could have done better’ in communicating the rapid approach of Car 81 and its driver stated that, ‘If I had been warned I could have done something earlier.’

“Accordingly we determine that although this was not entirely the fault of the driver, and that the team’s lack of communication was the major contributing factor, a grid position penalty must be imposed as Car 81 was ‘unnecessarily impeded,’ because there is no doubt that the situation could have been avoided.”

Leclerc is demoted from sixth on the sprint grid to ninth place, promoting Fernando Alonso, Lance Stroll and Esteban Ocon. In the unlikely event that Leclerc doesn’t take part in the sprint, the penalty will only carry over to the next sprint event and not Sunday’s grand prix itself.

McLaren seeks right of review into Norris penalty in Canada

McLaren has lodged a petition for its right of review into the penalty given to Lando Norris during the Canadian Grand Prix. Norris was handed a five-second time penalty for “unsportsmanlike behavior” in Montreal having been deemed by the stewards …

McLaren has lodged a petition for its right of review into the penalty given to Lando Norris during the Canadian Grand Prix.

Norris was handed a five-second time penalty for “unsportsmanlike behavior” in Montreal having been deemed by the stewards to have slowed down excessively behind the safety car in order to create a gap to teammate Oscar Piastri in front before pitting. Norris was confused by the penalty — that dropped him from ninth in the race to 13th in the results — and McLaren is now seeking a review.

In order to be granted that review, the team must convince the FIA that it has a significant and relevant new element that was not available to the stewards at the time the decision was made.

“We are very supportive of the FIA and the stewards, and we trust them while they carry out what is a difficult job,” a McLaren statement read. “We appreciate stewards need to make decisions in a short timeframe, analyzing complex scenarios and often with partial information and multiple elements to consider.

“In Canada, we were surprised by the penalty and uncertain as to the rationale behind the decision. We spoke to the stewards immediately after the race to help understand the reasoning for the penalty.

“The FIA’s regulatory framework has tools and processes which allow them and the sport to deal with the operational complexity of Formula 1, especially for decisions which need to be made during the race. The “right of review” is one of those processes which showcases the strength of the institution in allowing decisions to be reviewed, should that be in the best interest of the sport and this is something McLaren fully embraces and supports.

“Given this provision, the team took the initial explanation onboard and decided to review the case in a calm and considered manner, performing comprehensive due diligence, which included looking at the precedents. After this careful and extensive review, we believe enough evidence exists to…submit a “right to review” to the FIA, which we have done…

“We will now continue to work with the FIA closely, in the same constructive and collaborative manner in which we normally do, and will accept the outcome of their deliberations and decision.”

Piastri encouraged by scoring points before McLaren upgrades

McLaren’s double point-scoring result in the Australian Grand Prix was particularly important as it stops the team being too far adrift before its first round of upgrades, according to Oscar Piastri. Two scoreless races had left McLaren at the …

Two scoreless races had left McLaren at the bottom of the constructors’ championship heading to Melbourne, but sixth place for Lando Norris and eighth for Piastri moved it up to fifth overall in the space of one weekend. McLaren has acknowledged it isn’t happy with its launch-spec 2023 car and is set for a major raft of updates in Baku next time out, and Piastri says that makes the result even more valuable.

“To have both of us in the points is good,” Piastri said. “Obviously it hasn’t been a great first few races for the team but largely things out of our control. More things out of our control went right I guess to get us into the points, but to get this amount of points this early in the year is a great result.

“We’ve also got some upgrades coming in Baku and later through the year, so to be able to get some points on the board with the car we have at the moment I think is really important.”

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While Norris ran in the top 10 throughout on Sunday, Piastri wasn’t in the frame for points until late red flags accounted for the two Alpine drivers, and he admits it felt like payback for misfortune in the opening two rounds.

“Maybe a little bit, yeah. The first two races really couldn’t have gone much worse I would say for the team. In Bahrain we both had our issues and Saudi the contact wiping out both of us, so it was nice to be on the good end of things going wrong for other people.”

One area McLaren appeared to be clearly lacking in Melbourne was in straight line speed as Piastri struggled to pass Yuki Tsunoda, but the rookie believes the deficit is not as big as it appears but wasn’t helped by his own lack of experience.

“It’s tricky. We obviously know we’re quite slow on the straights at the moment, which is something that we’re looking to address and I think the AlphaTauri probably wasn’t that much quicker in a straight line, but I think even with the fourth DRS it’s still difficult to overtake here. I think for me, still some learning to do on how to use the battery most effectively to overtake but I had a lot of practice with it, so still good learning.”

McLaren keen to keep Piastri “focused on racing” at home race

McLaren will make sure Oscar Piastri is not affected by the demands of his first home race at the Australian Grand Prix in order to continue what the team describes as an “exceptional rate of development”. Piastri was signed by McLaren last summer …

Piastri was signed by McLaren last summer to replace the struggling Daniel Ricciardo, making his debut in the opening race of this season after a year out from racing. After encouraging signs from the young Australian – including his first Q3 appearance in Saudi Arabia – team principal Andrea Stella is confident he will handle himself well in Melbourne but says the team will also help.

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“He is a very calm guy, I think he will be able to keep himself in the bubble,” Stella said. “But certainly we’ll have to make sure that he can stay focused on racing, and he can stay focused on keeping up with this exceptional rate of development session after session.”

McLaren has yet to score a point in the opening two rounds of the season and is bottom of the constructors’ championship after suffering damage to both cars on the opening lap in Jeddah, but Stella sees Piastri’s progress as one of the biggest positives for the team.

“It was a weekend in which we went for the first time this year in Q3. We have seen really strong progress by Oscar. Obviously, Lando (Norris) is a complete certainty. So we know that Lando is there. So there’s some positives, but for me the message stays the same. We need to work hard to improve the car and go back racing where we should belong.

“I wouldn’t say that he took a big step. For me it’s going steady progress session by session. But, if you look back, already in FP1 he was a little bit more competitive than Bahrain, then FP2 closer, then FP3 pretty much a match for Lando, capitalizing in qualifying, and then very strong in the race. For me, I see more the sense of constant progression, which is ultimately the plan that we have with Oscar.”

And Stella is hopeful that Piastri will have a chance to repeat his Q3 performance in Melbourne as he believes the Albert Park circuit should suit McLaren in a similar way to the previous race.

“As a track in in terms of tarmac grip, speed of the corners, I would say it should be more similar to Saudi then Bahrain. So we look forward to that place in terms of being able again to challenge for Q3 and challenge for good points.”