Piastri had a relatively quiet race to fifth in Austin
Oscar Piastri says that his McLaren MCL38 “very tricky all weekend” after he started and finished the US GP in fifth position.
His team mate Lando Norris secured pole for Sunday’s race and finished fourth having been demoted from third by a penalty, thus ending a long run of podium finishes for the Woking outfit.
McLaren brought a package of upgrades to Austin, although Piastri did not have the new front wing that was on the sister car.
The Australian admitted that it was difficult to understand the car’s performance over the course of the weekend.
“It’s not been straightforward, that’s for sure,” he said. “I think today seemed a little bit more positive than yesterday. I think my pace relative to Lando, at least, was pretty similar for a lot of it.
“To be honest it’s not a complete surprise where we ended up, and where Ferrari ended up. I think Lando made us look more competitive than we were yesterday [in the sprint]. Fourth and fifth today is not completely unexpected.
“The car has been very tricky all weekend. I think over one lap it’s had potential to be quick, but trying to go unlock it has been incredibly tough, and then over the race, you can’t get away with the same things that you can over one lap, and the true pace really shows itself.”
Piastri had no explanation for why his pace picked up later in the race.
“I really don’t know,” he said. “Even the first two or three laps, both of us, it looked like we were really struggling to hang on to the pack ahead. The first 10-15, laps, we really struggled. Don’t know why.
“I was struggling a bit with the tyres, and they came back, and the medium looked very strong, considering it was pretty dead. So a bit of a confusing one to read. And I think even the pace in the second part of the race was maybe not amazing, but not terrible.
“So some things to try and understand, because e obviously can’t change the car from lap 15 to the rest of the laps! We need to understand why we suddenly found some pace.”
Piastri is hoping that Austin will prove to be the most difficult race for McLaren in the last part of the season.
“I hope this is our weakest of the [last] six,” he said. “We obviously had some good races at the tracks that are coming up last year, we had some bad races at some of the tracks coming up.
“I think in general, we should be a bit more competitive. We’re certainly not expecting Ferrari to be out of the picture for the rest of the year.
“They’ve kind of gone a little bit under the radar in the last few races, Monza they were obviously very quick, Baku was very, very tough to hold them back. And Singapore, I think, without their poor qualifying, they would have been very, very competitive.
“And this weekend is the same. This is not a completely unexpected result for them. We just need to try and turn that around next time.”
Adam Cooper F1 