Oscar Piastri has revealed issues affecting his McLaren during the sprint at the F1 Chinese GP.
Oscar Piastri and McLaren saw their pace evaporate during sprint qualifying, relegating Piastri to the second row.
The Australian held position at the start but seemed unable to catch the Red Bull of Max Verstappen or the Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton.
As the reigning world champion began to fade, Piastri dived down the inside of Verstappen on lap 15 at the end of the back straight.
Hamilton’s Ferrari proved a step too far, finishing seven seconds behind the seven-time world champion.
Oscar Piastri aiming for a win
Speaking in Parc Ferme, Oscar Piastri called his morning work “productive”, and stated he planned on winnimng tomorrow’s race.
“I think it was a productive Sprint. Obviously finishing second is always a great result. And yeah, I really learned a lot in that one,” said Piastri
“And I think, you know, as much as the result is a nice thing, the way I got the result, like you said, is an encouraging thing. So yeah, we didn’t quite have enough pace for Lewis out front, but I think we’ve got some good ideas for this afternoon and tomorrow and see if we can go one spot better”
Piastri then reaffirmed his confidence, but remained cautious of the pace of the Ferraris.
“Yes. Hopefully we don’t have as much traffic though, that’s the plan. So we’ll see what we can do this afternoon to start a bit higher and go from there. But yeah, I think we’ve got good pace in the car. We’ve clearly got a lot of competition this weekend. The Ferraris look pretty rapid, so we’ve got to be on our best form.
Tyre degradation issues
Speaking later in the post race press conference, Piastri admitted he had a challenging race. He confirmed managing the almost extreme tyre degradation was “difficult”
“Yeah, tough. Probably one of the more difficult ones in terms of tyre degradation. So I knew I had to try and be patient. And yeah, I think I pretty much executed the Sprint that I wanted to. Probably one position short of what I wanted to do, but I think in terms of how I went about it, I was happy with the end result.
So yeah, a pretty challenging race, but happy with it.
When asked, Piastri said he was confident the issues could be overcome for qualifying and the race.
“Yeah, I think we’ve got some good ideas. The difference between qualifying and the race in terms of what you want from the car and what the tyres need seems to be quite big. So it’s going to be a balancing act for sure, but I think we’ve got some good ideas on what we want for certainly tomorrow and even this afternoon.
“I think the pace we had in the car yesterday was good. I think we just, in hindsight, would have done a few things a bit differently in qualifying. But I think the pace is there and there’s plenty of confidence going into this afternoon.
